Can YouTubers actually hold police accountable?
NO SUCH THING
iHeartPodcasts and Kaleidoscope
4.6 • 609 Ratings
🗓️ 27 May 2026
⏱️ 61 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today’s episode was inspired by a question from a listener who goes by Santa: What’s the deal with First Amendment auditors? We trace the history of people who film the police, from the Black Panther Party to Berkeley Copwatch and the rise of auditor culture on YouTube. We also explore the methods and influence of some of the movement’s biggest creators, from Philip Turner (The Battousai) to Jeff Gray of HonorYourOath Civil Rights Investigations and Christopher Ruff (Direct D).
Our guests are Robert Klemko, an investigative journalist at ESPN who previously reported on auditors and cop watchers for The Washington Post, and Dale Hiller, creator of the LackLuster YouTube channel and co-founder of Attorney Shield.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, it's Devin. |
| 0:02.0 | I'm actually gonna plug another one of our episodes |
| 0:04.4 | at the top of today's episode. |
| 0:07.3 | If you enjoyed today's episode |
| 0:09.6 | and you wanna listen to something else in a similar vein, |
| 0:12.7 | check out our episode that we did last August, |
| 0:15.6 | titled Inside the Violent World of Online Pedophile Hunters. |
| 0:19.2 | They're both kind of this unofficial series where we do deep dives on these online communities |
| 0:24.7 | that intersect with police. |
| 0:27.0 | I'm going to link to that other episode in our show notes, but enjoy this episode about |
| 0:31.6 | First Amendment auditors right after these ads. |
| 0:35.2 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:38.6 | Guaranteed Human. |
| 0:53.0 | I'm Manny. |
| 0:53.8 | I'm Noah. And this is Devon. |
| 0:55.0 | This is no such thing to show we settle our dumb arguments and yours by actually doing the research. |
| 1:01.0 | On today's episode, can these YouTubers actually hold cops accountable? |
| 1:06.0 | There's no such thing. |
| 1:10.0 | No such thing. No such thing. |
| 1:12.8 | No such thing. |
| 1:15.9 | No such thing. |
| 1:18.9 | No such thing. |
... |
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