Perhaps I haven't gotten a representative sample, but in 100% of the content I've seen from self-described "first amendment auditors", they're acting unpleasant and suspicious for absolutely no reason other than provoking a reaction. To me this seems like antisocial behavior that degrades rather than supports First Amendment protections. I consider myself a pretty strong First Amendment supporter, but if I routinely found strange men filming me as I walked down the street, I would support basically any legal change required to make them stop.

> I consider myself a pretty strong First Amendment supporter, but if I routinely found strange men filming me as I walked down the street, I would support basically any legal change required to make them stop.

It strikes me that the first clause of this sentence and the last one are unambiguously contradictory.

I don't think so? The behavior of these auditors is not speech in any meaningful sense; they're not trying to communicate any message, they're just trying to make people around them uncomfortable. It's just hard to draw a clear line that would prohibit their behavior without chilling lawful speech.

Right now I don't think there are that many First Amendment auditors around, so there's not much point in passing new laws to deal with them. But if they became more common, it might be necessary to draw the line, as we did in the 90s with stalking.

> The behavior of these auditors is not speech in any meaningful sense;

I didn't suggest it was speech; it's press, no?

Again, I don't have enough context to cast judgment about them being assholes or violating some other law (like harassment, etc) - I don't support that _at all_.

However, the basic right to document one's surroundings in public is absolutely essential to liberty, especially now.

No, it's not press either. First Amendment auditors do things like this: https://www.independent.com/2025/07/09/first-amendment-audit...

You say "harassment", but that's precisely the problem. Many things that any reasonable person would identify as harassment are protected speech under the First Amendment. So these auditors go around harassing people, knowing that they're causing people emotional distress, because they're bullies who want to make people feel bad.

First Amendment auditors have usually been attention seeking individuals making click bait YouTube videos. It's been interesting seeing the transformation from that to what we're seeing with people monitoring ICE.

To be honest, I watch very little of that content, so I had no idea. If they're unkind, then obviously that sucks.

But walking around with cameras maintaining the unequivocal right to record what happens in the commons seems like a very important and thankless task.