First Amendment Auditors

Flightless Bird

David Farrier

Society & Culture, Documentary, Comedy

4.9 • 3.3K Ratings

🗓️ 2 December 2025

⏱️ 77 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this week’s Flightless Bird, David and Rob meet Betsy, a librarian who one day found herself being harassed by a “First Amendment Auditor” - a man in a hoodie badgering her endlessly for her name, salary and employment details. After calling the police, she discovered they could do nothing - and Betsy’s footage was uploaded for 100,000 people calling for her dismissal, and arrest. Farrier interviews Kristina Wilson and Kristi Nickodem, both experts in Public Law and Government, to find out what the hell was going on - and to see what someone like Betsy can do when confronted by this very unusual subculture of insufferable YouTubers.Email us: flightlessbirdchat@gmail.com Patreon: patreon.com/flightlessbird Dealing with Harassment and Threats Towards Local Government Officials and Employees: https://canons.sog.unc.edu/2022/07/dealing-with-harassment-and-threats-towards-local-government-officials-and-employees/ Responding to First Amendment Auditors: https://www.sog.unc.edu/sites/default/files/reports/2022-11-09%2020220124%20LGLB%20141.pdf Coates’ Canons NC Local Government Law: https://canons.sog.unc.edu/?s=%22responding+to+first+amendment+audits%22 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello?
0:05.5	Hi, Hayden, my little slice of pumpkin pie.
0:09.3	Yeah, it's good to hear from you again.
0:12.7	That was riffing on a recent episode called Pumpkin Pie.
0:17.7	Oh, right, yeah, I don't really listen, so I didn't pick that up.
0:23.9	The episode we're doing today is about First Amendment auditors.
0:31.3	Have you heard of them?
0:33.5	I think I've seen like little videos of them.
0:38.3	So they kind of stand in car parts and try to attract police officers and then film their confrontations with them or something?
0:46.3	You were amazingly, amazingly on the mark for something so obscure.
0:52.3	I feel a lot of Americans have no idea what they are.
0:55.2	Yeah, well, as I would keep mentioning, you guys are inflicting your culture on the rest of the
1:00.4	world by force in a whole bunch of different ways. So we, against our will, really know a lot of
1:06.6	about you. I'm David Farrier, and New Zealand are accidentally marooned in America, and I want to figure out what makes this country tick.
1:14.2	Now, since I've been here, I've discovered that Americans can be very passionate about certain topics.
1:19.7	Leafblowers, for example, they're very important here.
1:22.8	I recently discovered some states have a leaf-sucking truck that drives around,
1:27.6	oversized vacuum cleaners just for leaves.
1:30.4	It goes on and on.
1:31.6	Americans love flying their flags as well.
1:34.6	Many of them feel very strongly about their right to have guns and lots of guns.
1:39.4	And I also know that Americans are very passionate about the Constitution,
	...

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