Talk:First Amendment audit

This article was CLEARLY written by people who participate in First Amendment "Auditing"
It so full of false information, it's not funny and the authors make sure it stays there. 208.126.190.130 (talk) 00:04, 11 May 2022 (UTC)


 * Please feel free to present any suggestions on how the article can be made more neutral. Yee no   (talk) 00:23, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Yeah, having watched a lot of youtube, this is very much a mischaracterization of what I've seen. I'm sure there are some 1A auditors out there that have high minded ideals, but what I've seen is armies of functionally illiterate trolls that harass public employees, often going out of their way to antagonize (often with racism, homophobia, sexism, anti-semitism, obscenity, lies, distortions, insults, or just anything they think will offend.) And they clearly do it so they can monetize their youtube channel and get donations from other trolls. If you watch them enough, sometimes you can literally hear them admit as much. They try to antagonize public servants into overreacting so they can hit the gold mine of monetization. Most of them clearly have (based on their own words) a clear "eff the cops" or "eff the government" agenda. There is an disproportionally high rate of people with domestic violence, drunk driving convictions, or had their children taken away from them.
 * Reading this article, it seems to lean 80% "noble activists" and 20% "trouble makers trying to make a quick buck off of harassing people". In my observations, it's closer to 99% in the other direction. Of the hundreds of auditor videos I've seen, there are maybe 1 or 2 that maybe, kind of had a point and behaved in a respectable manner.
 * I don't want to just start editing and get into an edit war. Ksjazzguitar (talk) 10:30, 21 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I started watching these sorts of audits on youtube about 2 months ago. I feel like I have seen over 100 from maybe 15-20 different channels.  I disagree with your assessment that most of them are condescending and rude.  I have seen maybe 3 videos that I stopped watching because the 'auditor' was either loud, rude, or overly obscene; most seem respectful, although I do agree, antagonistic.  I have also never seen any racism, homophobia, etc, so I'm not sure where you saw that, but I would argue that is an extraordinary situation. Saying they clearly do it for money also seems very assumptuous, and also implies you shouldn't be able to make money off of something that you believe to be righteous.  Saying they are disproportionally more likely to have participated in domestic violence, drunk driving, etc also seems very defamatory without any numbers to back it up.  To me, it seems you have a strong bias.
 * Now that's all the fluff. Why I am writing this?  I watch these videos mostly for entertainment, and dont think of myself as any more informed simply because I watch one side of the argument.  I came here because I wanted to learn. I want to know how the first amendment actually applies in different situations, and if these audits are legally sound or not.  I agree there is a conflict of interest if auditors indeed wrote most of this, but it also shouldn't matter - facts are facts. So what are the facts?  As someone looking into this, I would like to just see sourcable information.  I encourage whoever makes edit to this article to just focus on the facts about the audits themselves.  Is there merit to the most common arguments and situations that occur?  Please don't include assumptions about whether or not most of them are good people or not.  I'm not interested in that.
 * With that said, I don't have faith the above commenter would edit this article without bias. Mikedubayou (talk) 22:50, 29 July 2022 (UTC)
 * WP:NOTFORUM applies unless there are specific suggestions or content that is being challenged. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 09:11, 30 July 2022 (UTC)
 * "I encourage whoever makes edit to this article to just focus on the facts about the audits themselves. Is there merit to the most common arguments and situations that occur? Please don't include assumptions about whether or not most of them are good people or not. I'm not interested in that."
 * I dont know the rules of wikipedia editing, so rule how you have to. I agree this is not a forum.  My specific suggestion is sticking to facts.  The content I am challenging is in the discussion channel, but it not content worthy of being added. Mikedubayou (talk) 08:19, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Citation 1 does not support the quotation
First Amendment audits are a largely American social movement that usually involves photographing or filming a public space. It is often categorized by its practitioners, known as auditors, as activism and citizen journalism that tests constitutional rights;[1]

https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/protesters-rights/#i-want-to-take-pictures-or-shoot-video-at-a-protest Zugzwangerone (talk) 21:49, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Citation removed for accuracy Zugzwangerone (talk) 22:04, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Citation 3 speaks to the opposite as to what investigators believe
Auditors believe that the movement promotes transparency and open government.[3]

http://wschronicle.com/2015/03/1st-amendment-videotaped-audit-police-leads-investigation/

Investigators believe that the video was a part of a national trend titled “First Amendment Audit,” according to a media release sent out Friday afternoon from the Winston-Salem Police Department. The purpose of the trend is to attract the attention of law enforcement or military security personnel to determine if those security personnel will infringe on their First Amendment rights.

Justice, the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office and the Winston-Salem Transit Authority Administrative Building and fuel pumps.

“The point of citizens’ rights to record law enforcement is for police-citizen encounters. The point is not to randomly film police departments just to prove a point about First Amendment and public property,” Dennis said. “Doing so just to prove a point can be problematic, especially since the First Amendment is not equally applied across demographics and across contexts.” Zugzwangerone (talk) 22:08, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Citation 9 source speaks to YouTube money and fame
Auditors tend to film or photograph government buildings, equipment, access control points and sensitive areas, as well as recording law enforcement or military personnel present.[9] <-not in the text

Over the past few years, First Amendment auditing has also become a cutthroat YouTube industry, with auditors taking increasingly aggressive positions in encounters with police, knowing that if they are to get arrested or grabbed by a cop it will boost their views and build their online profiles. There are dozens of auditors on YouTube. While their videos typically get just tens of thousands of views, big channels or viral videos can net millions. Zugzwangerone (talk) 22:30, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
 * As a professional auditor, it's more of an insult to the profession when these people call themselves "auditors." Auditors have a prescribed scope and objective to what they're auditing.  The auditing body is generally given notice or aware that an audit schedule is happening.  These people are not real auditors but rather instigators.  They (as you mentioned) take aggressive positions in hopes that they can provoke law enforcement enough to go the extra mile for Youtube footage and a possible settlement.  Many end up looking foolish in their attempts.  71.89.130.90 (talk) 15:08, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

Legality section - tagging?
https://www.policemag.com/526605/citizen-video-audits-know-their-rights-and-yours Talks about low hanging fruit attracting litigators

The whole section is a questionable legal analysis. Zugzwangerone (talk) 22:55, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
 * This is hardly an WP:RS. I have reverted these edits. The source was an interesting read and had some interesting content. However, this source appears to be a police industry magazine (probably not good for WP:NPOV it might have some useful content. Feel free to discuss one by one the changes you seek to implement and maybe we can find other sources for them as well. Generally wikipedia does not give legal advice. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 07:28, 2 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the input. I was trying to work with the links provided. When I read the article they were using the police article and then changing it from the police believe to the "auditor" believes.Zugzwangerone (talk) 14:35, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Legality section - case citations?
>The legality of recording in public was first clearly established in the United States following the case of Glik v. Cunniffe,[28] which confirmed that restricting a person's right to film in public would violate their First and Fourth amendment rights.

As I understand that case (and the one that follows), it dealt specifically with filming LEOs in the course of their duties in public, not the broader right to film in public. But 1A auditors go after a lot more than cops. It also ignores the fact that a lot of the 1A auditors will use this as an excuse to interfere with active investigations or trying to make the police uncomfortable and unsafe - getting too close, walking into their blind spots, ignoring lawful orders... In a few cases, you can see these guys (caught on a police body cam or another 1A auditor) quickly reaching into their pockets quickly or hiding their hands to make the police fear they have a weapon.

Furthermore, 1A auditors tend to interpret cases like this much more broadly and unconditionally than they were originally intended. These cases were not meant to imply that all filming is legal in ALL situations when paired with ANY activity. It is not the case that causing a disturbance at city hall is illegal but suddenly becomes illegal because they are filming it - this is often how cases like these get interpreted. Ksjazzguitar (talk) 13:26, 21 June 2022 (UTC)


 * Agreed. It's important to note that "auditing" is distinct from copwatching (the practice of filming police during the course of their duties in a traditional public forum), and that almost all case law on this topic involves either filming police in a non-"auditing" setting or traditional trespassing charges that don't address a broader right to film. None of the case law cited in the article addresses a broader "right to film" in a limited or non-traditional public forum (such as a library, post office, or other government run facility) in which there is a posted "no filming" policy. Theo7777 (talk) 20:50, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

NPOV Dispute
Article is written to advocate "first amendment auditing" as supported by the misuse of sources and misquotation of sources creating an article that is incorrect and nonfactual.

When I read the sources and changed the article accordingly the article was not neutral from the other direction. There are two directions of non neutrality. 1) the direction supporting auditing which includes making a legal argument for the same 2) a police perspective; the omission of justifications including economic justifications
 * First, please sign your remarks using
 * Please provide sources to balance the WP:NPOV. I also added a third = to the two sections above to make them sub-sections of this NPOV dispute. Is that ok? I also reverted your wholesale change to the WP:LEDE. The lede summarizes and does not introduce new content. You removed what i guess is longstanding content and replaced it in a wholesale manner, this is not ok. Please discuss what you want to do here first. Thanks! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 20:33, 2 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Thanks as well.. I think the Lede is incorrect (even if its longstanding) and the NYU white paper does a better job of it. There are two components 1) testing the right to film 2) the process of being filmed   3) filmed interactions is really the key element.   Justifications can be monetary, or fame, or activism.


 * Filmed interactions with police that make headlines or spread on social media is not a new phenomenon. But a growing movement of self-described “First Amendment Auditors”—individuals who specifically film on public property and police stations to test the rights to film in a public space—has forced some police departments to review how to respond to First Amendment audits. The audits, often posted to YouTube, have become a form of activism: individuals stake out a public facility and record the location and any interactions with staff and the public. An uneventful audit is akin to “passing a test,” while a confrontational audit, usually an attempt by an employee to interfere with the filming, gets a failing grade. Many audits are non-violent and uneventful. But some encounters have escalated dramatically, resulting in arrest and litigation.


 * For a teaching guide on the rights and limitations of recording audio and video of police, click on the box below.


 * https://firstamendmentwatch.org/deep-dive/controversial-first-amendment-auditors-test-the-right-to-film-in-public-spaces/
 * Appreciate your help in getting the lede from where it is to a more accurate description. Zugzwangerone (talk) 19:12, 2 December 2020 (UTC)


 * , I removed a few colons from your lines above, generally this would not be ok to edit another's post, but I hope you are ok with it. I wanted to show you some formatting since I guess you are a new editor. Normally we will use the same colons for each new line of content we add, in one timestamp (defined by the four tildes signature). Then the next editor will further indent one time. I think you could read this Indentation to help explain it. So in your previous post (after my edits), you used 3 colons, so in my reply I use 4 colons. The next time you will use 5 colons. OK, back to the content...
 * Generally at wikipedia we will use high quality sources (WP:RS) for this type of controversial content, and generally we will not use WP:PRIMARY sources. The police magazine is probably considered an industry magazine and likely a source that is geared towards police officers. This source might be kosher if we attribute it as a policeman's view. It would unlikley be considered a high quality neutral sources, such as WSJ, NYT, washingtonpost, etc. Generally, we will look to those type of mainstream sources if we want to summarize something in WP:WIKIVOICE. For this firstamendmentwatch.org, we might be able to attribute that to the pro-first amendment audit community (if that is what the website is about). But in general we are going to ahve to use these sources very very sparingly. Please read the policy on RS and find some sources from the mainsteam. Thanks! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 20:43, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Relocate paragraph 3 - npov as a victim is one side
Auditors tend to film or photograph government buildings, equipment, access control points and sensitive areas, as well as recording law enforcement or military personnel present.[10] Auditors have been detained, arrested, assaulted, had camera equipment confiscated, weapons aimed at them, had their homes raided by a SWAT team, and been shot for video recording in a public place.[11][12][13][14][15][16] Such events have prompted police officials to release information on the proper methods of handling such an activity.[17][18] For example, a document sponsored by the International Association of Chiefs of Police states that the use of a recording device alone is not grounds for arrest, unless other laws are violated.[19] Zugzwangerone (talk) 15:02, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Paragraph 2 people believe lots of things suggest removing
Suggest removing

[2][3] Auditors believe that the movement promotes transparency and open government.[4] However, critics argue that audits are often confrontational in nature, as auditors often refuse to self-identify or explain their activities.[5][6] Some auditors have also been known to enter public buildings asserting that they have a legal right to openly carry, leading to accusations that auditors are engaged in intimidation, terrorism, and the sovereign citizen movement.[7][8] Zugzwangerone (talk) 15:04, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

YouTube critical to the definition or lead paragraph - First Amendment Auditors
In looking for sources I ma finding that YouTube is a key element.

"Perez is part of a community of YouTubers known as “First Amendment Auditors” who film themselves interacting with cops and visiting government locations with the stated goal of holding the government accountable and educating Americans about their rights. In practice, many of these videos become confrontational, leading to escalating law enforcement reactions and, in some cases, arrests. Those confrontations can lead to more viewers and more paying supporters"

Https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/15/18226124/youtuber-shot-filming-security-guard-first-amendment-audit-furry-potato Zugzwangerone (talk) 22:59, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Youtube is not an WP:RS in general, when it is user generated content. But if it is CNBC, CNN, etc then it could be an RS. Please see WP:UGC. Thanks! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 06:02, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Very biased language
As an outside observer, seeking knowledge and to understand, the language of this article feels very biased against "auditing". Wikipedia is not a place to take a stand against a certain topic, please include both sides of the coin in the spirit of polical independence or dont bother having the article. I just want to learn, not be lectured at. 2601:547:CA81:71F0:D8CB:C8E5:A048:8CB1 (talk) 15:35, 5 April 2023 (UTC)


 * I also found this to be the case Jbax123 (talk) 08:54, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
 * That's interesting. As an outside observer (from Europe)also only seeking knowledge, the language of this article feels very biased to me too. But just the other way: It sounds to me as if it is written by "auditors". Apparently the ideas of reader influence how the content is perceived. JonValkenberg (talk) 14:31, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I also agree, it tends to be very one-sided and isn't well developed when it comes to criticisms. The legal discussion seems cherry picked, conflates copwatching with "auditing" (two different concepts that are only tangentially related), and doesn't present the anti-"auditing" arguments or critical case law. Issues that have arisen in discussions on YouTube on the issue, such as public forum doctrine, are absent here, possibly because they don't support the author's or authors' opinion on the issue. Theo7777 (talk) 20:37, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
 * It definitely needs significant improvements / developments but now we at least have categories for support, criticism, and legality. The problem before was that bias was everywhere but not labeled as such so that it presented everything as mere neutral information.
 * The next task seems to be to fill in with better content, sources etc for both sides.
 * We currently do not have content for the other side under legality. If anyone has any cases which present legal challenges to legality that would be helpful. Jbax123 (talk) 20:58, 29 October 2023 (UTC)
 * We currently do not have content for the other side under legality. If anyone has any cases which present legal challenges to legality that would be helpful. Jbax123 (talk) 20:58, 29 October 2023 (UTC)
 * We currently do not have content for the other side under legality. If anyone has any cases which present legal challenges to legality that would be helpful. Jbax123 (talk) 20:58, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

I think in its current state the article seems about as reasonably balanced as could be and I found it very helpful. Per$1$tenceofv1$1on (talk) 18:13, 12 October 2023 (UTC)Per$1$tenceofv1$1on

Re-organized and made language more neutral
I made a lot of edits today to move the more polemical sounding content into distinctive sections for criticisms and proponent sections. I also changed the heading "legality" and "goal" to "legal status" and "purpose" respectively in order to get more precise about what seemed to be the motivations for these sections to begin with. Jbax123 (talk) 08:59, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

No privacy in the US?
Every civilized country has free speech and free press. But only in the US it apparently can legally be used to harrass people and invade their privacy. Anyone with legal knowledge: Is it really legal to film a person (not just in passing, but holding the camera to their face and follow them) and monetize that? As a European that seems very disturbing to me. Maybe it would be interesting to add in the article how this is handled in other countries? --JonValkenberg (talk) 14:34, 19 September 2023 (UTC)


 * Hi Jon, I think this is a form of right-libertarianism which is broadly more an American than a European phenomenon. Per$1$tenceofv1$1on (talk) 18:33, 12 October 2023 (UTC)Per$1$tenceofv1$1on
 * It's probably more of an American phenomenon because American rights are enumerated in the U.S. Constitution, well-defined, and well-protected by the American legal system.
 * It's difficult to audit rights that you can't be sure you have. I recently saw a livestream where Brendan Kavanaugh, aka Dr. K, was performing boogie-woogie on a public piano in a UK train station with some people watching from a distance. Some of those people walked over to Dr. K and told him that he must delete any video of them. He refused, of course, and pointed out that they're in the UK, not communist China (they were holding little red Chinese flags). The police were called and were questioning him about those remarks. Apparently stating "we're not in China" is possibly an arrestable offense in the UK. He stood up for himself and the right to free speech in a country that arrests people for speech. His performance turned into an audit of his rights. A much braver audit than any done in the United States.
 * I looked up this topic to see if there is any information about the history of auditing like this. Who was the first? Jimberg98 (talk) 07:21, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
 * The claim that "there's no expectation of privacy in public" is a key part of the "script" that many practitioners of "first amendment auditing" use, along with claims to be "independent journalists working on content for a story". The issue of expectation of privacy in public is more nuanced under US law than "auditors" present the issue [note: I am not a lawyer], and American professional television productions try to obtain releases from people who appear on camera.  It would be interesting to add in the article how privacy issues play into this, presenting viewpoints from both the pro and con sides. Theo7777 (talk) 20:31, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Just want to say I agree with all of this. It's quite simply an underdeveloped area of law given that until recently taking video was not so easy, and YouTube incentivizes these folks to make money with outrageous conduct.  But there are laws, from the tort of inclusion upon seclusion to criminal harassment and disorderly conduct.  Different issues also obtain depending on whether the video is taken for commercial purposes--and it's an open question whether these would fall under that category.  Anyway, that's all to say there is privacy in the U.S., but as ever, the law is trying to catch up to technology and culture.  Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 22:10, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
 * inclusion upon seclusion
 * Typo
 * intrusion upon seclusion ArishiaNishi (talk) 19:48, 17 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Indeed! Thank you. Dumuzid (talk) 20:01, 17 December 2023 (UTC)