Featured Image credit: First Amendment Shenanigans/YouTube
As the Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE seeks to root out waste, fraud, and abuse at the national level, a citizen cohort claims to achieve accountability and transparency at a more local level.
As per Doge, government mismanagement is pervasive.
Let’s stipulate, moreover, that lots of people probably have had unpleasant or frustrating experiences with unresponsive public-sector bureaucrats and their often-restrictive or unreasonable rules.
First-Amendment auditors in general claim that they are bringing to light government improprieties. That is obviously a worthy goal.
As champions of the First Amendment, they also purport to “educate” those they encounter about constitutional rights.
The First Amendment is one of the most cherished components of the Bill of Rights and one that never should never be tampered with.
Nor, however, should it be trivialized.
The basic technique: As well-chronicled on YouTube, as self-designated members fo the “free press,” auditors often show up primarily at a state or federal government building, including a courthouse or even a much more obscure agency, with cell phone cameras mounted on a gimbal or a tripod and begin filming there despite a posted policy that prohibits such recording.
When staff engages them, an auditor typical maintains that he or she is an “independent journalist engaging in constitutionally protected activity” which can include “documenting the building,” “documenting their interactions,” or filing a Freedom of Information request.
According to an organization called the Freedom Forum, “The right to take photographs and record videos of a public space is generally protected by the First Amendment. But freedoms of speech and the press are not unlimited…auditors can legally film their interactions with employees and officials in public spaces without first obtaining their consent. However, this right is not without limitations. Auditors have no right to film in nonpublic spaces ― places where someone has a reasonable expectation of privacy and where others would need permission to enter, such as a personal office…”
Traditional journalists, the purveyor of fake news according to President Trump, aren’t winning any popularity contests, so it’s unlikely that First Amendment auditors are improving the reputation of the media cohort.
First Amendment auditors argue that the above-referenced no-filming policy at a given agency is not law, and therefore is unenforceable under the free-press provisions of the First Amendment in the U.S. Constitution in a publicly accessible building.
Unless they are on assignment perhaps for an outlet like Architectural Digest, documenting the building is seldom really what’s going on.
In general, what they seem to be actually angling for is a confrontation with staff, security, or police to create clicks and views and more subscribers to monetize their YouTube channels.
Some auditors therefore make serious YouTube income (which perhaps makes their claim that “I paid for this building” valid to some degree); other much less so. What seems lost in this assertion is that the people who they are harassing, or who feel harassed, are also taxpayers.
Wikipedia has published a pretty good summary of “self-styled” First Amendment auditors and notes that “Auditors believe that the movement promotes transparency and open government, while critics have argued that audits are typically confrontational, criticizing some tactics as forms of intimidation and harassment.”
All kinds of original content creators are making a living on YouTube. Nothing wrong with that. Some great work is posted to YouTube and is one of the primary reasons why conventional media is losing vast swaths of market share.
And, again, government at all levels needs to be held accountable.
Unfortunately, these auditors actually are making it more difficult for legitimate activists and whistleblowers to accomplish this important objective because the auditors’ engagement-farming likely results in the public sector becoming more closed off and less willing to be forthcoming.
Two things can be true at once, i.e., government needs a course correction and that auditors are opportunistic.
Are They Auditors or Frauditors?
Reasonable people can agree or disagree with First Amendment audits. Accordingly, if First Amendment auditors have exposed legitimate government malfeasance in certain instances, this blog post will be promptly updated upon receipt of that information.
Critics call them First Amendment frauditors, however, on the grounds that the they are just LARPing as a way to generate social media-generated cash while avoiding having a real job. Cosplaying First Amendment impersonators perhaps.
If you watch some of these videos, auditor behavior typically starts as pseudo politeness, followed by condescending, passive-aggressive behavior, then by belligerence and orchestrated outrage if they are asked to stop recording and/or asked to leave the premises.
Then they often spew profanity if or when cops show up.
Some of the YouTube channels that debunk these so-called frauditors with both footage and commentary include Frauditor Troll, Dr. Dave, First Amendment Shenanigans, Lucid’s Lair, and NCR News Network.
Review the content on these channels and draw your own conclusions as to whether First Amendment auditors are serving the public interest or their private interests.
A Daily Beast article published in January 2019 explained, in part, that “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.”
Police/prosecutorial overreach does occur in America in various circumstances. For instance, the lawfare rolled out on President Trump and others in his orbit provided a troubling prototype for court cases brought against some prominent politicians overseas.
In Europe where free-speech protections are less-than robust, cops have even arrested ordinary citizens for social media posts while officials downplay violent crime.
In the auditor context, although arrests (and prosecutions) can occur, and you can decide whether they are justified, sometimes cops show up on scene of an audit and seem to pander to the auditors.
Although this is perhaps apples and oranges, police hesitancy here is a stark contrast to how cops have arrested parents at school board meetings around the country who in good faith show up to express their disagreement with curriculum they deem indecent and/or inconsistent with the educational mission.
Debunkers often insist that auditors/frauditors lack smarts, but that seems inaccurate. Whoever originally came up with this form of performance art that has been replicated by others across the country was very clever.
Auditors are glib and impressively have their script or talking points memorized so effectively that they often easily flummox government employees or police with their First Amendment-related assertions and word games.
They could even have a second career in providing assertiveness training for shy folks or introverts.
Is it Just a Performance?
If you do watch these videos, however, you’ll likely come to the conclusion that the whole exercise, as suggested above, is performative and inauthentic.
Auditors implement this routine over and over at different agencies in their home state and elsewhere around the country, but pretend to act surprised each time when the lobby of a government office can descend into quasi chaos.
An auditor typically then claims that the escalated situation is “unbelievable” and everyone else is acting crazy and unprofessional.
Although one “size” does not fit all, auditors, some of whom have sketchy background and can tend to be obese, often show up at these agencies dressed like hobos while wearing masks and sunglasses.
As an aside, based on the videos, obesity seems to be running rampant among government employees, too, unfortunately.
While auditors claim to represent the people, moreover, the latter often make it clear that they don’t want to be filmed while doing business with the government. Anyone in that scenario can presumably lodge a privacy complaint with YouTube.
Never-Ending Story
It is unclear whether the staff at these agencies have awareness as to what is going on (i.e., a potentially lucrative prank) if they allow themselves to be antagonized or baited into a long, circular discussion.
To their credit, many of these workers typically do try to be courteous even in a contentious situation.
Auditors often proclaim they will only leave a facility “under threat of arrest,” which they perceive as magic words to create a cause of action in a federal civil rights lawsuit under 42 U.S. Code Section 1983. To date, auditors apparently seldom actually go to court or the lawsuits tend to go nowhere if filed.
First Amendment auditing seems also akin to a continuous loop. For example, if the intake person on their FOIA request is insufficiently professional as the auditor perceives it, the auditor uses that as a pretext to file an additional FOIA request to gather information on that person. From the outset, moreover, the FOIA requests seem frivolous or pointless.
Laws do vary from state to state, but as alluded to above, auditors typically refuse to submit an FOIA request online (even thought it’s the most efficient way to do it). Instead, they demand an agency employee, even if it’s the wrong venue for such requests, accept it on paper based on their interpretation of a statute.
While running an active YouTube channel, they nonetheless sometimes claim they “don’t have” the Internet. Occasionally, they even convince an employee to be their personal stenographer which seems demeaning.
And if an officer or staffer at the police station is insufficiently cordial when they file a complaint against other officers that kicked them out from somewhere, they attempt to file a follow-up complaint on that police official.
The ‘Forum’ Makes a Difference
At the risk of oversimplifying, some government entities function in what’s considered a limited public forum where time, place, and manner restrictions can legally be implemented. Depending upon the jurisdiction, enabling statutes and regulations can exist in this regard (and they should be posted). Restrictions particularly come into play at social service agencies, schools, police stations, and the DMV, where confidentiality or public safety are prioritized.
Note; In 2025, Florida, for example, passed the Halo Law, to prevent bystanders or interlopers from creeping too close to traffic stops or other police investigations. It creates a 25-foot buffer zone.
Auditors seem to particularly enjoy hanging out at post offices. They often cite Poster 7 as justifying their actions. Hardly anyone takes the time to actually read the relevant language, however, because it sets forth permissible and impermissible filming that seems to rule out what the auditors are doing. See the section on “Photographs for News, Advertising, or Commercial Purposes.”
What Have We Learned from First Amendment Audit Videos?
Audit videos can be both entertaining and annoying and maybe even addictive. After a while, you can recognize several overarching themes:
- While it’s easy to Monday morning quarterback, and no one knows how they would react, it seems a better way to handle these encounters on the part of the worker is to avoid a going around in circles in conversing with the auditors interminably and getting baited into a negative reaction. Instead, end the conversation promptly and maybe say something along the lines of “if you disagree with our no-filming policy, take it to court.”
- Similarly, “If you disagree with our interpretation of the FOIA statute, take it court.”
- If a public sector worker decides to call the cops, try doing it in another room and without necessarily announcing it. Otherwise, an auditor tends to claim that “I was just about to leave but I’ll have to stay to wait for the police to arrive.”
- Auditors often justify their actions by referencing the plain-view doctrine, but the latter applies only to law enforcement.
- Auditors often imply that a publicly accessible building constitutes a free-for-all. In these scenarios, trespassing, loitering, disorderly conduct, etc., are all potential charges whether occurring in the public or private sector.
- Credit where credit is due, auditors who bring their camera close to a police cruiser window indirectly remind cops that they need to shut their laptops or implement quick screen-savers to prevent the filming of sensitive information.
- Auditors also indirectly encourage agencies to post signage such as “authorized personnel only,” “restrictive area,” and so forth when auditors poke around individual offices with no apparent regard to common courtesy.
- Amid concerns about the proper use of government resources, audits ironically tend to needlessly tie up numerous employees and police with interminable debate.
- Auditors are fond of mentioning that public spaces are loaded with cameras, but that tends to be an imprecise equivalency because those cameras, while potentially invasive, are for security rather than click bait.
- Auditors seem obsessed with obtaining names, badge numbers, and business cards (does anyone actually use business cards anymore?) and demanding to speak with supervisors.
- If police are truly “tyrants,” why would auditors feel emboldened to shout vulgarities at them even in the absence of an arrest?
Some critics maintain that First Amendment auditing and the associated YouTube viewership are on the wane. In the meantime, some auditors have set up outside private businesses such as banks and claim when asked, e.g., that they “can’t divulge the ‘investigation’ until it’s published.”
This post may be revised/updated as warranted. Agree or disagree, if you have an opinion about First Amendment audits, sound off below.
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