This sounds less like “knowing your Constitutional rights” and more like Randy Marsh being arrested for drunken brawling.
Let’s say someone gets pulled over for no reason, and starts rolling tape. This person knows their rights, argues with the cop until he leaves, then posts the video for the world to see. Kudos, well done.
Turning the camera on first, then heading out there seeking a confrontation is pretty fucking stupid, in my opinion.
I don’t know what you’ve been looking at but yes, baiting cops is pretty fucking stupid and not anywhere within the scope of what I clicked on.
That being said; I know exactly how I’d respond to cops trying to violate my Fourth Amendment rights at home. Would you go belly up and let em in with no warrant or have some balls and tell em to get fucked? Lets get real here. Joe Citizen (me) ain’t eating that shit sandwich.
If cops asked if they could come in, I’d say no. If cops bust the door down, I’m hitting the floor. Call it balls if you like.
Rather than attacking everyone here for lacking your clearly advanced sociopolitical capabilities, perhaps you should reflect on why the material in question is causing people to keep their skeptical distance.
This is mpsims, and we expect the tone here to be friendlier and… More about sharing and exchanging points of view than what this kind of post projects.
Also, this is an example of “junior modding”. This forum asks posters not to confront each other like this, but to complain to the mods if you think a post is moving the conversation off-topic.
So, two strikes.
This is just a mod note, and not an official warning on your record. But i suggest you read the guidance on posting on general, and on posting on this category.
edited to add:
See especially the sections on insults and junior modding.
Edited again to add:
This part of your post is really inappropriate. Direct insults are not tolerated outside the pit:
please don’t do it again.
These “first amendment auditors” seem to be birds of a feather with those jerks who walk around openly carrying assault rifles, terrifying everyone around them, and claiming that they’re just exercising a federally protected right.
Yes, I supposed the first amendment does protect people’s rights to be assholes.
Crap! That ain’t someplace called Patucket, that’s Pawtucket Rhode Island. That is a dilapidated old industrial city that now has traffic fines as it’s major source of income. Most of those fines are for illegal parking on street sweeping days even though you’re lucky if your street is ever swept. I’ll make this short and say if you want to find incompetence in government then you’ll find a lot of low hanging fruit in Rhode Island, and the Pawtucket branches are particularly close to the ground.
There is a channel, Audit the Audit, where an aggregator grades both the cops and auditor giving both a grade of A to F. He provides a link in the video back to the auditor’s channel so you can see the whole interaction as presented by the auditor, not just the parts he himself shows.
He may be cherry picking picking but I have yet to see any where the auditor was outright provoking the cops and does give a higher grade to an auditor who stays calm. He did once give an auditor an F grade for completely and beligarently misstating the particular statute he was using. A common scenario is the first contact officer getting a low grade while the supervisor called in gets a much higher grade, often an A.
Just a last desperate attempt to return this thread to the realms of reality.
The First Amendment is not an absolute. Congress and courts have established limitations to the rights. So have state legislatures before and after a series of decisions ruled the that 14th Amendment extended the First to state law.
This First Amendment Rights article provides a brief overview of what isn’t allowed. Especially applicable her is what they call “speech-plus.”
Speech-plus involves actions, such as demonstrating or protesting, as well as words. Speech-plus is not generally protected as strictly as is pure speech, because actions can be physically dangerous. The courts have ruled that demonstrators may not obstruct traffic, endanger public safety, or trespass illegally.
The definitions of those terms are codified in state and federal laws. You can’t globally declare that none of them apply to you just before you feel like it.
Modding:
This kind of comment is not permitted on the boards (except in the pit). This is an official warning.
I wouldn’t have a problem with this if they were up front about it and started out by saying “We are pretending to use our legitimate right to observe the functioning of government in order but actually we are trying to get you to over-react so people will watch our videos, and in so doing we are actually interfering with the legitimate function of government and have no right to be here.”
I never heard of this before, I was curious what this thread was about, and then wondered about a place called ‘Patucket’ so I looked at the video and found out it was actually ‘Pawtucket’. The location didn’t matter, just look at the video, they walked into the probation office and nothing was going on there. There wasn’t anything to observe, I doubt they had any reason to believe they could observe anything of interest in that lobby, so I just don’t see them being there for a legitimate purpose. I have friends who live in Pawtucket and the outrageous property taxes and traffic fines they pay to live in that dump should not be wasted on dealing with morons like these phony auditors.
Yawn.
You seem to be working your way through the alphabet. Let me know when you get to “Miranda Sings.” I’ll have plenty to say about that.
It’s one thing to observe the police or other government officials while they are in public. I agree with that entirely. If someone wants to record an interaction between a cop and someone they pulled over, as long as they are not interfering, they should be allowed to.
But the first amendment isn’t a free pass. Having a camera does not mean that you get to walk into the back offices of a government building and observe the work going on there. It doesn’t mean that you can go into a hospital and observe the patients and their treatment.
I’ve watched many such ‘First Amendment’ videos (including the parallel cases of ‘Sovereign Citizens’ who claim they don’t need to obey State traffic laws as they are ‘travelling’ in a car, not ‘driving’ it.)
If a journalist wants to do a piece on Government officials, they would:
- be a real journalist
- behave in a civil manner
- know the difference between the actual law and some Internet rubbish
- contact the office in advance to arrange filming and interviews
‘First Amendment’ auditors clearly just want to get viewers for their Youtube channel and raise money from suckers to pay their fines or bail.
They do no preparation, including finding out what the actual Federal + State law is.
So they try to bring cameras into courtrooms, despite there being case law up to and including the Supreme Court.
They film victims of crime at police stations.
They interfere with the police trying to investigate crimes.
One ‘Auditor’ actually tried filming through the window of a refuge for victims of domestic violence.
They follow an Internet script (which has no basis in law) and have no interest in a reasoned discussion. They want to provoke a reaction from police, crime victims and government officials.
They are prepared to scream insults (“tyrants” is a popular one) and repeat them selves endlessly.
Of course the First Amendment is a vital part of freedom in the USA.
However these stupid, rude, selfish ‘Auditors’ have no idea what it actually means.
And this is the crux of it. The First Amendment gives Americans quite a lot of freedom to be raging dicks. That doesn’t mean I think people should do it. For example, I believe people have the right to burn the American flag (local fire codes withstanding) but I reserve the right to consider them petty, puerile jerks for doing so.
Carmen or Lin-Manuel?
Indeed, I don’t understand why you’re allowing people to post such things in your thread.
Since the OP has been banned, let’s close this.