From the USA With Love

If you have ever watched any of the YouTube videos of so-called First Amendment auditors at work, you will be familiar with this particular kind of creep. Commonly known as frauditors, they frequently video their escapades and angry exchanges with those unfortunate enough to have to put up with them, from law enforcement to postal workers, council workers and, more recently, ordinary people just running a business. They think it is okay to walk into someone’s office, start filming them and follow them about – never mind that there might be security or privacy issues.

Now, it seems, this toxic activity has crossed the Atlantic.

A police officer has been praised for his professionalism after he was harassed by a YouTube ‘auditor’ attempting to make a complaint about a security guard.

The Metropolitan Police officer, stationed outside the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in Westminster, was approached by a man who claimed a security guard was following him as he attempted to conduct his ‘private business’ filming the building.

Video footage of the interaction, posted on the auditor’s YouTube channel, shows the officer trying to reason with the auditor who appears incensed and ‘wants to make a formal criminal complaint’ because he feels ‘alarmed, harassed and distressed’.

‘Your private business involves the building he [security guard] is responsible for and is providing security for’, the officer says calmly, while stepping out of his vehicle.

‘So, if you see it from his perspective, he’s got a male who is wearing garb that is concealing his identity.’

It comes as these self-proclaimed YouTube auditors are on the rise in the UK and are becoming a bugbear for many police officers trying to fulfill their roles.

These people are not auditors. I’ve done a bit of auditing in in my time. I had to be qualified to carry out the role. I had to also be qualified in the role I was auditing. I was authorised to do so and had the consent of the organisation being audited. You see a pattern here?

These arseholes have no qualification, they have no consent. Yes, they can film in a public place and no one denies that. However, it never stops there, it always escalates into outright harassment as people rightly object to them sticking a camera in their faces and follow them around. Also, they never seem to understand that ‘publicly accessible’ is not the same as ‘public property.’ So you can film out on the street, for example, but if you go into someone’s offices, you cannot if the property owner says not. While foyers and post offices are publicly accessible, they are still private property and the property owner can refuse permission. Also, the people working there are not answerable to these puffed-up poncing poltroons who have set themselves up to ‘audit’ their activities. They need to be firmly told to fuck off and mean it.

Unfortunately, as it means YouTube clicks and revenue, this one is likely to hang around a bit – much like a bad smell.

As the officer says ‘okay, have a good day’, attempting to bring the dialogue to an end, the auditor makes a final jibe of ‘get back to work’.

The officer then calmly attempts to explain what his ‘specific task’ is for that day, while being told he is a taxpayer-funded ‘public servant’ by the auditor.

Yup. Straight out of the frauditor playbook. These cunts are beneath contempt. All they do is harass people going about their day job. Sooner or later one of them will get a good kicking and it will be well deserved. In the US, local authorities are trespassing them from local buildings and some of these creeps have ended up doing jail time for their activities. They are scumbags.

9 Comments

  1. I saw this in my local paper today – I wonder if that law has been repealed? Also it was a jury that convicted!

    ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO – FRIDAY 19 JANUARY 1900
    STOCKBRIDGE – TOUTS AND THE HIGHWAY
    A case of much interest to the racing world was decided at the Wilts Assizes on Tuesday. The question at issue in a civil action was whether two touts had the right to use the highway near Bishopstone Downs for the purpose of watching racehorses belonging to Mr *******, the well-known Foxhill trainer, who paid £50 annually for a licence to use the Downs. The point put before the jury was whether defendants had any right on the highway other than as wayfarers, or whether they might pursue the ordinary business of their calling to obtain a livelihood thereby. The judge held that it was not a legitimate use of the highway to acquire and publish information of this kind for a livelihood. A verdict was therefore returned for the plaintiff for one shilling and costs, and an injunction was issued to prevent the defendants so frequenting the highway for the future.

    https://www.andoveradvertiser.co.uk/news/24852926.back-pages-andover-advertisers-past/

  2. Perhaps he saw this particular police officer taking a knee or giving Hamas hate marchers an easy ride and thought he might have an easy target there.
    I have no fucking sympathy. They chose their side. As far as I can see, both tossers in this story are on the same side.

  3. Difficult one. On the one hand the coppers can be total wankers puffed up with their own self importance, on the other, the “auditors” can be the same.

    I suspect the “alarmed, harassed and distressed” part was because that’s the sort of bullshit phrasing used by Plod when they are investigating hurty words on social media or non-crime hate incidents.

    • Yes. As I mentioned to Jussi, these wankers harass private citizens going about their jobs. Posties seem to be a favourite. In the USA, they will walk into private businesses and start making their lives miserable. What happens there usually follows over here.

  4. Can you say In the US, local authorities are trespassing them from local buildings? I’ve never seen trespassing used in that way, I’d probably use ejecting?

  5. In New Zealand, you can be trespassed from private property by the owners or the police. This happens when serial shoplifters are caught and then banned from entering the shops. Ignoring the ban is a separate offence and can be dealt with as well as any other offence committed.

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