re: 1st amendment auditors

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How do the cops continue to harass these guys and violate their rights after being sued and losing 1000x? Why does the general public lose their minds when someone is filming in public? There are generally cameras EVERYWHERE. Especially in public places. These guys can be annoying but if LEOs and idiots would leave them alone they would eventually go away.

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The reason they can't leave them alone is the same reason we have a police problem in the US admit it or not. When you are a hammer and nothing but a hammer everything else is a nail and there is only one thing a hammer can do with a nail and that's bash the fricking shite out of its head. The dude on youtube down in South Florida gets the same cops over and over and over again...the cops love the wrestling more than he does. The training we provide cops is a disgrace.

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Municipal governments are starting to pass ordinances to combat these folks. They are designating free speech areas in public buildings and off limit areas.

Most mind their own business but some are shite stirring to get a lawsuit.

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Well there is a fine idea...strip the citizens of their rights because you have a case of the fee fees. Given that there is a camera on just about every pole and sign in every city of any size in the US its disturbing at least that the state can monitor us but we can't monitor the state.

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It is often hard to leave someone alone when their entire mission is to get under your skin.

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They post many friendly interactions with police and government employees,
people don't watch those.

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We live in a privileged society when people are afraid of cameras.

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If a person is afraid of cameras they will be unable to function in public. Cameras are everywhere. It is not the camera...its the person with a camera and the person who is scared or otherwise put out has an irrational fear of people...but obviously fine with the state doing exactly the same thing as the person. Irrational, unfounded fear is the problem, not the camera, not the person with a camera.

Those videos did nothing but reaffirm my hatred for 90% of policemen

So called 1st amendment auditors don't care about people's freedom. They are just trying to cause confrontations so they have interesting content for their pages.

Notice if they walk into a post office to film and no one cares, they will stand there for a while and then decide to take it up a notch and try to force their way into secure areas in the back. They will keep escalating their behavior until they get a reaction from an employee or a civilian.

There are videos of these idiots trying to walk into elementary schools, rehab centers, and battered women's shelters. When being told they aren't allowed to film in there or enter without having business they claim to be journalists working on a story and then cry when they get trespassed.

There was a guy who used to walk up to people sitting at restaurants next to the sidewalk and put his camera right into their face. Then if people asked him to stop he threatened them with pepper spray... you know in the name of freedom.

If a person is generally just walking around filming minding his own business that is one thing, but from what I've seen of these guys on the internet the whole point is to harass people.

They are just as big of losers as the "it's just a prank bro" people you see on TikTok.

I love when these fricking losers confuse First Amendment rights with UCMJ and get owned by MPs. You cannot film the gate of any military installation and MP vs county/local PD are not the same.

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they can easily say I am investigating a report of trespassing, for instance, and you are being detained as part of that investigation.


Sure, but if there is no actual report of trespassing then that is an automatic pay day and possibly that's cops job.

Or if someone reported them as trespassing when they weren't (and they will almost always have full video to prove they weren't) then that's a lawsuit and possible charges against the liars.

Cops can't just make shite up.

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Does a cop need someone to tell them someone may be trespassing? In most of these videos someone has called the police and told them something along the lines of "there is someone out front filming us". At that point the person receiving the call should ask "are the committing a crime" if the answer is "I don't know" or "no" the cops should not waste their time. If the answer is "Yes" the follow up should be "what crime"? If there is an articulable suspicion of a crime, if the answer is "they are trespassing" the cop has an articulable suspicion and can ID. If the person calling says "no" or "I don't know" they should, if they respond at all, merely go and observe...if the cop does not have articulable suspicion of a crime at that point they should contact the caller and tell them the person was not committing any crime but if they see them doing so to call back.

If someone does falsely accuse another person of a crime the accuser should be sued. They should also be charged with the crime that false complaints is. If the accused is not trespassing when the cop shows up they should ignore the complaint...it has resolved itself, the person is no longer trespassing.

What should not happen ever is what happens every time...the first thing the cop does is approach the person, asks for ID, without any time for the cop to observe any indication he might have an articulable suspicion of crime, because the cop is trained to be a hammer and everything other than a cop is a nail.

It would be hard to make a case against a cop for investigating an articulable suspicion of a crime...that is, after all, the essence of the job. The bar is not high, if someone calls and articulates their suspicion of a crime the cop has an articulable suspicion...either the caller or the person they called about. They are, at the point, duty bound to investigate...and in that investigation they can lawfully detain and ID a citizen. What they can't do, but do almost every time, is simply roll up, tell the person they must ID, that there is no articulable suspicion and the person is not being detained. Once that happens the cop has shot their wad...they have no legal leverage to do their job. It is not hard unless of course you are a hammer and everything on the planet is a nail.

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The amount of bootlicking in this thread is crazy.

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The amount of cop bootlicking done in this country is the root of the obvious policing problem we have in this country. If the boss, the citizens, like the job the employee, the cop, is doing, the cop would be an idiot not to do more of it, especially when it is in their DNA to do so. It is more harmful for the police of this nation than questioning their processes and motivation. The bootlicking leads them to conclude they are behaving in an acceptable manner when violating basic legal rights of citizens should never be acceptable to anyone, especially an officer of the court. The bootlicking which encourages officers of the court to violate the rights of citizens is a terrible idea.

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There's no privacy in public.

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I didn't say there was. All I did was play devil's advocate for those immediately wanting to throw 'karens' and the cops under the bus. All the first amendment auditors do is purposefully do things in public that while legal call attention to them in an attempt to get someone from the public to engage them and to hope a cop makes a misstep so they can sue the department and collect the settlement. While both the reactor and the cop are absolutely culpable. The 'auditors' in these videos will borderline harass people because it is 'legal'. Their 'jobs' is one of those things that while legal just doesn't feel legal. Especially on the videos where they are asked not to film someone and they essentially tell them to frick off its public space until they can get the reaction (calling the cops) that they are looking for.

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How do you know someone isnt somewhere beating off to that footage?

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You don't, know one does. I'm sure if you have kids and someone got picked up in your area and you found out the had pictures/videos of your kid(s) from a public space in their collection you would be 100% cool with it though. It was legal for them to take it.

Just playing devil's advocate. I 100% agree that the cops have to learn how to do their job and not overstep because if there was no money to be made, then these 'auditors' would stop. They do not do it out of the goodness of their heart. Neither are they (for the most part) just standing there with a camera. They are hoping to get a payday, and willing to toe the legal line to the verge of creepy.