6 ms·

While I support freedom of speech, I cannot bring myself to support these auditors. They all act like entitled jerks bent on provoking confrontation to generat

While I support freedom of speech, I cannot bring myself to support these auditors. They all act like entitled jerks bent on provoking confrontation to generate clicks. I'm ashamed that these jerks are at the forefront of anything. In the past it was Hustler magazine fighting against a religious-political system styming freedom of speech. Today it is losers with cellphones fighting over their right to shout at people in libraries.

ceejayoz 3y ago
Larry Flynt was definitely a jerk bent on provoking confrontation. Cops who can't handle a jerk without committing a clear violation of the Constitution shouldn't be cops.
- sandworm101 3y ago
  Flynt confronted those in power, politicians and religious leaders. First amendment auditors provoke the meek, publicly-facing employees lacking any power beyond their ability to telephone police.
  - ceejayoz 3y ago
    "Meek, lacking any power" does not describe the NYPD.
    - sandworm101 3y ago
      I think it does. Street-level cops have no power over policy or politics. They can certainly seem very powerful on a person-to-person level, but in terms of government policy or national culture they are very small. Flynt instigated fights with far bigger things than local cops.
      - ceejayoz 3y ago
        > Street-level cops have no power over policy or politics. Sure they do. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrolmen%27s_Benevolent_Association_Riot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrolmen%27s_Benevolent_Assoc... San Francisco's cops bombed the mayor's house in 1975. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Police_Department#1975_strike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Police_Departmen... These are big incidents, but their political power is quite clear on a regular basis. NY's police union head even spoke at the RNC in the last presidential election. https://nypost.com/2020/08/27/rnc-2020-nypd-union-head-says-democrats-have-surrendered-our-streets/ https://nypost.com/2020/08/27/rnc-2020-nypd-union-head-says-... https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/06/us/police-unions-minneapolis-kroll.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/06/us/police-unions-minneapo... > They aggressively protect the rights of members accused of misconduct, often in arbitration hearings that they have battled to keep behind closed doors. And they have also been remarkably effective at fending off broader change, using their political clout and influence to derail efforts to increase accountability. > When liberal politicians do try to advance reform proposals, union officials have resorted to highly provocative rhetoric and hard-boiled campaign tactics to lash out at them. This past week, the head of the sergeants’ union in New York posted a police report on Twitter revealing personal information about the daughter of Mr. de Blasio, who had been arrested during a protest.
      - Clubber 3y ago
        >They can certainly seem very powerful on a person-to-person level, but in terms of government policy or national culture they are very small. That is incredibly naive. I would argue the police unions are the most powerful unions in the country by quite a large margin.
        olliej 3y ago
        In any real sense the police "unions" are unique in that they're the only union that actively opposed and attacks other unions. Every union other than the police unions is attacked because they "hurt the economy" (they don't, and they're the reason for most improvements to compensation and working hours normal people experience). Every other union will refuse to cross picket lines, whereas police unions actively assault picket lines, and have repeatedly murdered strikers, and also covered up murders of strikers. Police, and their union, are sufficiently anti-union that it's absurd that they're still a "police union" rather than a gang. After all the police union is the only one permitted to use force, and is the only one allowed to break the law, and the only one that gets to kill others.
  - nyc_data_geek1 3y ago
    exactly which meek, publicly facing employees are working in police stations in NYC? How does that boot taste?
  - olliej 3y ago
    Have you worked in customer service? The kind of BS that these "auditors" do that results in them being arrested doesn't come close to the BS I personally experienced on a daily basis working in retail, and somehow I was able to not assault them. The problem is police believe that using force is acceptable, and so they use force by default, typically after escalating an interaction rather than doing their job which is to de-escalate. The reason for that is that police unions keep trying to train cops to be thugs (the myriad "training" courses that are geared to "every day could be your last, be ready to shoot" instead of "your goal is to arrest criminals, not execute them, so learn to calm down situations instead of making them worse")
- conductr 3y ago
  Flynt was a promoter, he got headlines and sold magazines. Being a proponent of the constitution was a secondary concern that just happened to work in his favor Most of the cops seem to just not want their actions being recorded as what seems like a clear result of them also feeling above the law, more power to the people working to change that culture and protect our rights along the way
petee 3y ago
I watched one where the guy went in afterhours, yelled at a clerk, then at the custodian for vacuuming the floor, even yanked the plug out of the wall accusing them of trying to silence them. These psychos don't even see they are the reason we have to have so many laws and regulations
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  The camera doesn't change anything in that scenario; it'd be something like disorderly conduct with or without it. The filming isn't the illegal part of what you describe.
- kolanos 3y ago
  Care to share a link?
- alex_lav 3y ago
  > don't even see they are the reason we have to have so many laws and regulations Cops murder with impunity but yanking a vacuum cable out of a wall calls for full legal reform.
thedaly 3y ago
I see these kind of videos all the time and typically the auditor is being respectful, and doesn't do anything outside of recording to attract the attention of the authorities. Long Island Audit is one account that comes to mind.
- evulhotdog 3y ago
  Long Island Audit is the fella this trial was about.
jawns 3y ago
There are many First Amendment auditors out there, and I agree with you that a good number of them purposefully attempt to provoke a reaction or get under people's skin. But I've watched dozens of Reyes' videos, and that is not his style. If he enters a public space, he doesn't call attention to himself and typically doesn't speak to anyone unless spoken to. Most often, he films the walls of public buildings, and if he points a camera at anyone in particular, it's only because they've approached him to ask him what he's doing. He is cordial in his responses and will generally politely explain to anyone who inquires that he's an independent journalist gathering content for a story. On the flip side, police and other government officials routinely treat him with contempt and hostility from the moment they see him, barking unlawful orders at him and attempting to suppress conduct that the law explicitly protects. He's been assaulted, had his camera equipment destroyed, and been unlawfully arrested multiple times, as he was by the NYPD. If he comes off a little salty as a result of that mistreatment, it's at least understandable. But even in the case where First Amendment auditors are not being respectful and are acting like jerks ... it's worth noting that the First Amendment is not designed to protect content and actions that others approve of, or that make others feel comfortable. It is explicitly designed to protect speech that others would rather we not speak, religions that others would rather we not practice, journalism that others would rather we not publish. So even if they are being jerks, as long as their conduct is legally protected, it at least allows us to determine whether the First Amendment is being respected.
- ryandrake 3y ago
  I also don't like how "provoke" is sometimes used as a get-out-of-jail-free card for people with who can't control their reactions or responses. We all have had to deal with random assholes, that's life. But we don't deal with it by acting out ourselves. If I get in a bar fight with someone, it's not acceptable, even if the other guy "provoked" me. We should hold ourselves to a higher standard than the assholes, and surely the police should have to hold themselves to an even higher standard.
  - jawns 3y ago
    You're right. Police and government officials routinely describe First Amendment auditors as attempting to bait law enforcement and public servants, intentionally provoking them into violating their rights. But baiting is when you entice a person to do something wrong by offering them some kind of incentive. And it has to be something they wouldn't otherwise do unless incentivized. Thus, you can't "bait" a law enforcement officer by simply engaging in constitutionally protected conduct, unless the argument from police is that officers just can't restrain themselves from violating people's civil rights when those rights are exercised. In fact, in one of Reyes's encounters with the NYPD that led to an unlawful arrest, one of the officers told him afterward, "You wanted this to happen," and Reyes responded, incredulously, "I wanted you to violate my rights and take away my freedom?" No, he wanted to be able to go about his business without being arrested -- which he was later able to do after this court ruling went into effect.
hiatus 3y ago
If the police can't gracefully handle a jerk with a cellphone, how do we expect them to behave in even more trying situations?
- meepmorp 3y ago
  If anything, their greater authority and power over other people demands a higher standard of behavior than we'd expect from regular citizens.
- sandworm101 3y ago
  There is no way to handle these people gracefully. They don't respond to police requests to leave. They see gradual escalation as weakness. Getting someone to leave private property, a provocator who doesn't want to leave and doesn't respect anyone's authority, will inevitably require more than words. Manhandling someone out of an area by force cannot be done gracefully. Arguably, common policies on gradual escalation only exacerbate the problem of auditors. Cops go from polite requests, to direct orders, trespass notices, through non-lethal things like tasers and pepper spray, and only then to handcuffs and arrests. The cops that handle these people best seem to be the ones that skip the middle stuff, instead going straight from polite request to handcuffs, with trespass notices coming afterwards.
  - ceejayoz 3y ago
    > There is no way to handle these people gracefully. The First Amendment doesn't have an "unless they're a pain in the ass" exemption. > Getting someone to leave private property These folks tend to be on public property. That's the whole schtick.
    - sandworm101 3y ago
      If the first amendment even applies. Many/most auditors are not in public spaces. They are on private property that the wrongly believe to be public spaces. I've even seen more a few on military property in some crazy belief that all such places are open to public inspection.
Spooky23 3y ago
The "auditors" are jackasses, no doubt. But you need to protect the freedom of jackasses to be jackasses. My wife was a municipal employee who had to deal with one of the particularly noxious ones that was big during the peak MAGA hype cycle. It was awful and personally embarassing to be chastised in public for doing a job required by law to be done, but that's the reality of public service. My uncle was a senior official for a municipality. His home was picketed during a tense labor negotiation. Also noxious and difficult for the family, but a necessary part of the democratic process to allow. At the end of the day, the shocking revelations that NYPD desk sergeants give zero fucks isn't very compelling video. It's a fad, and it will fade. But the need to hold the government accountable remains, and allowing trolls to damage that serves nobody well, including the police. No different than my uncle. It sucks my cousins had to deal with that as kids, but it would equally suck if some goon squad prevented the union members from having their grievances addressed.
- conductr 3y ago
  > His home was picketed during a tense labor negotiation. Also noxious and difficult for the family, but a necessary part of the democratic process to allow. No, that is not necessary for democracy to work. Going to a public official's home is never necessary. Please enlighten me to what I'm missing that requires this invasion of privacy and security.
  - ceejayoz 3y ago
    > Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. A peaceful protest on a public sidewalk outside a public official's home falls pretty squarely within those protections.
    - conductr 3y ago
      I didn't argue it was illegal/unconstitutional. But voicing that it's certainly not an essential part of a functional democracy
boredumb 3y ago
A yes Larry Flynt, the beacon of non confrontation and being pleasant, fought to have his magazine print that a pastor (that was vocal against him distributing hardcore pornography) was a drunkard that had sex with his own mother in a fake biographical 'advertisement' in said magazine - much different than edgy people on youtube asking cops for their names and business.
alex_lav 3y ago
> They all act like entitled jerks bent on provoking confrontation to generate clicks. Almost as big a jerk as the people they're auditing. Almost.
PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
Rights not expressed are rights that you lose. you may as well describe soldiers as murderous pieces of shit, and while it may be true on some level, YOUR world would be much worse off without them.
JohnFen 3y ago
I agree entirely with this. These so-called "auditors" are harmful. It's a shame that these people are destroying the ability of citizens to use these facilities without risking exposure.
- klinquist 3y ago
  "It's a shame these people are informing the public what it means to be in public, including what rights they themselves have."
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    I don't agree that's what they're doing.
obviouslynotme 3y ago
Freedom not only allows jerks and kooks, but it requires them. We need sovcits and police auditors, because they define the boundary and remind the police and prosecutors, whom are apt to forget, where that boundary is. Everyone demands victims be kind and normal, but that is rarely the case. Kind and normal people stay far away from the boundaries by nature, but the boundaries always shrink when there is no push-back. We need the kooks out there getting tazed so we don't have to.
tehwebguy 3y ago
Reasonable sounding but incorrect take. It should absolutely be auditors that deal with this. They are willingly subjecting themselves to a negative experience for the benefit of us all. Some may be unreasonable but they must not be blamed for the cracks they expose in our system. Some random person going about their life should not be the one who has to push this to the supreme court if necessary. Every decision like this represents countless past and future plea deals that normal, working people take (at great personal expense often) in order to just move on with their lives.

ceejayoz 3y ago

Larry Flynt was definitely a jerk bent on provoking confrontation. Cops who can't handle a jerk without committing a clear violation of the Constitution shouldn't be cops.

sandworm101 3y ago
Flynt confronted those in power, politicians and religious leaders. First amendment auditors provoke the meek, publicly-facing employees lacking any power beyond their ability to telephone police.
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  "Meek, lacking any power" does not describe the NYPD.
  - sandworm101 3y ago
    I think it does. Street-level cops have no power over policy or politics. They can certainly seem very powerful on a person-to-person level, but in terms of government policy or national culture they are very small. Flynt instigated fights with far bigger things than local cops.
    - ceejayoz 3y ago
      > Street-level cops have no power over policy or politics. Sure they do. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrolmen%27s_Benevolent_Association_Riot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrolmen%27s_Benevolent_Assoc... San Francisco's cops bombed the mayor's house in 1975. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Police_Department#1975_strike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Police_Departmen... These are big incidents, but their political power is quite clear on a regular basis. NY's police union head even spoke at the RNC in the last presidential election. https://nypost.com/2020/08/27/rnc-2020-nypd-union-head-says-democrats-have-surrendered-our-streets/ https://nypost.com/2020/08/27/rnc-2020-nypd-union-head-says-... https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/06/us/police-unions-minneapolis-kroll.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/06/us/police-unions-minneapo... > They aggressively protect the rights of members accused of misconduct, often in arbitration hearings that they have battled to keep behind closed doors. And they have also been remarkably effective at fending off broader change, using their political clout and influence to derail efforts to increase accountability. > When liberal politicians do try to advance reform proposals, union officials have resorted to highly provocative rhetoric and hard-boiled campaign tactics to lash out at them. This past week, the head of the sergeants’ union in New York posted a police report on Twitter revealing personal information about the daughter of Mr. de Blasio, who had been arrested during a protest.
    - Clubber 3y ago
      >They can certainly seem very powerful on a person-to-person level, but in terms of government policy or national culture they are very small. That is incredibly naive. I would argue the police unions are the most powerful unions in the country by quite a large margin.
      - olliej 3y ago
        In any real sense the police "unions" are unique in that they're the only union that actively opposed and attacks other unions. Every union other than the police unions is attacked because they "hurt the economy" (they don't, and they're the reason for most improvements to compensation and working hours normal people experience). Every other union will refuse to cross picket lines, whereas police unions actively assault picket lines, and have repeatedly murdered strikers, and also covered up murders of strikers. Police, and their union, are sufficiently anti-union that it's absurd that they're still a "police union" rather than a gang. After all the police union is the only one permitted to use force, and is the only one allowed to break the law, and the only one that gets to kill others.
- nyc_data_geek1 3y ago
  exactly which meek, publicly facing employees are working in police stations in NYC? How does that boot taste?
- olliej 3y ago
  Have you worked in customer service? The kind of BS that these "auditors" do that results in them being arrested doesn't come close to the BS I personally experienced on a daily basis working in retail, and somehow I was able to not assault them. The problem is police believe that using force is acceptable, and so they use force by default, typically after escalating an interaction rather than doing their job which is to de-escalate. The reason for that is that police unions keep trying to train cops to be thugs (the myriad "training" courses that are geared to "every day could be your last, be ready to shoot" instead of "your goal is to arrest criminals, not execute them, so learn to calm down situations instead of making them worse")
conductr 3y ago
Flynt was a promoter, he got headlines and sold magazines. Being a proponent of the constitution was a secondary concern that just happened to work in his favor Most of the cops seem to just not want their actions being recorded as what seems like a clear result of them also feeling above the law, more power to the people working to change that culture and protect our rights along the way

petee 3y ago

I watched one where the guy went in afterhours, yelled at a clerk, then at the custodian for vacuuming the floor, even yanked the plug out of the wall accusing them of trying to silence them. These psychos don't even see they are the reason we have to have so many laws and regulations

ceejayoz 3y ago
The camera doesn't change anything in that scenario; it'd be something like disorderly conduct with or without it. The filming isn't the illegal part of what you describe.
kolanos 3y ago
Care to share a link?
alex_lav 3y ago
> don't even see they are the reason we have to have so many laws and regulations Cops murder with impunity but yanking a vacuum cable out of a wall calls for full legal reform.

thedaly 3y ago

I see these kind of videos all the time and typically the auditor is being respectful, and doesn't do anything outside of recording to attract the attention of the authorities. Long Island Audit is one account that comes to mind.

evulhotdog 3y ago
Long Island Audit is the fella this trial was about.

jawns 3y ago

There are many First Amendment auditors out there, and I agree with you that a good number of them purposefully attempt to provoke a reaction or get under people's skin. But I've watched dozens of Reyes' videos, and that is not his style. If he enters a public space, he doesn't call attention to himself and typically doesn't speak to anyone unless spoken to. Most often, he films the walls of public buildings, and if he points a camera at anyone in particular, it's only because they've approached him to ask him what he's doing. He is cordial in his responses and will generally politely explain to anyone who inquires that he's an independent journalist gathering content for a story. On the flip side, police and other government officials routinely treat him with contempt and hostility from the moment they see him, barking unlawful orders at him and attempting to suppress conduct that the law explicitly protects. He's been assaulted, had his camera equipment destroyed, and been unlawfully arrested multiple times, as he was by the NYPD. If he comes off a little salty as a result of that mistreatment, it's at least understandable. But even in the case where First Amendment auditors are not being respectful and are acting like jerks ... it's worth noting that the First Amendment is not designed to protect content and actions that others approve of, or that make others feel comfortable. It is explicitly designed to protect speech that others would rather we not speak, religions that others would rather we not practice, journalism that others would rather we not publish. So even if they are being jerks, as long as their conduct is legally protected, it at least allows us to determine whether the First Amendment is being respected.

ryandrake 3y ago
I also don't like how "provoke" is sometimes used as a get-out-of-jail-free card for people with who can't control their reactions or responses. We all have had to deal with random assholes, that's life. But we don't deal with it by acting out ourselves. If I get in a bar fight with someone, it's not acceptable, even if the other guy "provoked" me. We should hold ourselves to a higher standard than the assholes, and surely the police should have to hold themselves to an even higher standard.
- jawns 3y ago
  You're right. Police and government officials routinely describe First Amendment auditors as attempting to bait law enforcement and public servants, intentionally provoking them into violating their rights. But baiting is when you entice a person to do something wrong by offering them some kind of incentive. And it has to be something they wouldn't otherwise do unless incentivized. Thus, you can't "bait" a law enforcement officer by simply engaging in constitutionally protected conduct, unless the argument from police is that officers just can't restrain themselves from violating people's civil rights when those rights are exercised. In fact, in one of Reyes's encounters with the NYPD that led to an unlawful arrest, one of the officers told him afterward, "You wanted this to happen," and Reyes responded, incredulously, "I wanted you to violate my rights and take away my freedom?" No, he wanted to be able to go about his business without being arrested -- which he was later able to do after this court ruling went into effect.

hiatus 3y ago

If the police can't gracefully handle a jerk with a cellphone, how do we expect them to behave in even more trying situations?

meepmorp 3y ago
If anything, their greater authority and power over other people demands a higher standard of behavior than we'd expect from regular citizens.
sandworm101 3y ago
There is no way to handle these people gracefully. They don't respond to police requests to leave. They see gradual escalation as weakness. Getting someone to leave private property, a provocator who doesn't want to leave and doesn't respect anyone's authority, will inevitably require more than words. Manhandling someone out of an area by force cannot be done gracefully. Arguably, common policies on gradual escalation only exacerbate the problem of auditors. Cops go from polite requests, to direct orders, trespass notices, through non-lethal things like tasers and pepper spray, and only then to handcuffs and arrests. The cops that handle these people best seem to be the ones that skip the middle stuff, instead going straight from polite request to handcuffs, with trespass notices coming afterwards.
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  > There is no way to handle these people gracefully. The First Amendment doesn't have an "unless they're a pain in the ass" exemption. > Getting someone to leave private property These folks tend to be on public property. That's the whole schtick.
  - sandworm101 3y ago
    If the first amendment even applies. Many/most auditors are not in public spaces. They are on private property that the wrongly believe to be public spaces. I've even seen more a few on military property in some crazy belief that all such places are open to public inspection.

Spooky23 3y ago

The "auditors" are jackasses, no doubt. But you need to protect the freedom of jackasses to be jackasses. My wife was a municipal employee who had to deal with one of the particularly noxious ones that was big during the peak MAGA hype cycle. It was awful and personally embarassing to be chastised in public for doing a job required by law to be done, but that's the reality of public service. My uncle was a senior official for a municipality. His home was picketed during a tense labor negotiation. Also noxious and difficult for the family, but a necessary part of the democratic process to allow. At the end of the day, the shocking revelations that NYPD desk sergeants give zero fucks isn't very compelling video. It's a fad, and it will fade. But the need to hold the government accountable remains, and allowing trolls to damage that serves nobody well, including the police. No different than my uncle. It sucks my cousins had to deal with that as kids, but it would equally suck if some goon squad prevented the union members from having their grievances addressed.

conductr 3y ago
> His home was picketed during a tense labor negotiation. Also noxious and difficult for the family, but a necessary part of the democratic process to allow. No, that is not necessary for democracy to work. Going to a public official's home is never necessary. Please enlighten me to what I'm missing that requires this invasion of privacy and security.
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  > Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. A peaceful protest on a public sidewalk outside a public official's home falls pretty squarely within those protections.
  - conductr 3y ago
    I didn't argue it was illegal/unconstitutional. But voicing that it's certainly not an essential part of a functional democracy

boredumb 3y ago

A yes Larry Flynt, the beacon of non confrontation and being pleasant, fought to have his magazine print that a pastor (that was vocal against him distributing hardcore pornography) was a drunkard that had sex with his own mother in a fake biographical 'advertisement' in said magazine - much different than edgy people on youtube asking cops for their names and business.

alex_lav 3y ago

> They all act like entitled jerks bent on provoking confrontation to generate clicks. Almost as big a jerk as the people they're auditing. Almost.

PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago

Rights not expressed are rights that you lose. you may as well describe soldiers as murderous pieces of shit, and while it may be true on some level, YOUR world would be much worse off without them.

JohnFen 3y ago

I agree entirely with this. These so-called "auditors" are harmful. It's a shame that these people are destroying the ability of citizens to use these facilities without risking exposure.

klinquist 3y ago
"It's a shame these people are informing the public what it means to be in public, including what rights they themselves have."
- JohnFen 3y ago
  I don't agree that's what they're doing.

obviouslynotme 3y ago

Freedom not only allows jerks and kooks, but it requires them. We need sovcits and police auditors, because they define the boundary and remind the police and prosecutors, whom are apt to forget, where that boundary is. Everyone demands victims be kind and normal, but that is rarely the case. Kind and normal people stay far away from the boundaries by nature, but the boundaries always shrink when there is no push-back. We need the kooks out there getting tazed so we don't have to.

tehwebguy 3y ago

Reasonable sounding but incorrect take. It should absolutely be auditors that deal with this. They are willingly subjecting themselves to a negative experience for the benefit of us all. Some may be unreasonable but they must not be blamed for the cracks they expose in our system. Some random person going about their life should not be the one who has to push this to the supreme court if necessary. Every decision like this represents countless past and future plea deals that normal, working people take (at great personal expense often) in order to just move on with their lives.