At issue, besides the scary camera, was the young man's refusal to sign in at the front desk, a long standing policy at Emeryville City Hall, a policy without the force of law. The cameraman tries to calm down the public servants by explaining, correctly, that people don't have to surrender their Fourth Amendment rights to access publicly accessible government buildings. Any areas of City Hall that are not specifically for authorized personal only, and properly signed to indicate that, are open to the public.
Bay Area Transparency has been active since 2019 and has 142 videos with 44 million views with an average of 290 thousand views per day. It is part of a whole genre of YouTube channels conducting 'First Amendment audits' by video recording in public forums to document government employees and their acceptance or lack of acceptance of people's First Amendment rights. These videos have shown many police departments in the Bay Area and beyond, authoritarian and prone to falsely arrest members of the public who record police activities. The Emeryville police featured in the video show a reasonable level of professionalism, unlike the City Hall staff.
To the Emeryville City Hall staff: You can ask us to sign in at the front desk (without coercion) when we come to our city hall but we don't have to do it if we don't want to. We can chose to access our government anonymously. Don't call the police on people not breaking the law in their own building. And calm down for christ's sake. It's a public building and the public is invited in to partake in their government, even those who have scary cameras and who know their rights.
The city manager and city attorney are just clueless. How can they run a town when they can't even run their building? Epic fail!
ReplyDeleteA caped freedom fighter/ pain in the ass combo.
ReplyDeletePain in the ass? Sure. For the government, people who know their rights are commonly not appreciated. So much better for them when they can expand their rights (falsely) at our expense. But this guy's video is more than a documentation of a flexing of an individual's Constitutional rights. It benefits Emeryville residents because it shows us the true nature of our government that we have built.
DeleteNow that we can see what we have built, we can fix it if we deem it to be fixed. We now know they are claiming powers they don't actually have and intimidating people with the false power. They never would have told us this without a pain in the ass there to expose it. Pains in the ass are necessary for full disclosure for wayward governments. Public information is good in a democracy.
For City Hall to ask people to sign in there is OK as long as it's clear it's not required. The signing in should only be for OUR benefit, not theirs. It should be to help serve the public better, not for any other reason.
DeleteJust as bad as a Trumper. Interesting you praise it.
ReplyDeleteReally? How do you figure that? Trump is an authoritarian. That's the polar opposite of respecting citizens flexing their rights. People taking police and government officials to task is anathema for authoritarians (unless they're on the 'other team'). Trump likes the order part of law and order, and therefore police (Capital Police excepted of course).
Delete“Respecting citizens flexing their right” Big flex. Both incite violence. Again, interesting you praise this behavior.
ReplyDeleteReally? Inciting violence is illegal. The police were there and they didn't think violence was incited. There were no arrests because there was no law broken. Had that been the case, I would have been against what transpired at City Hall. But since no laws were broken, chalk this up as another case of a citizen speaking truth to power. Citizen empowerment in the running of their government...the Tattler is all about that and that's why it's in the Tattler. It's an education moment for public employees.
DeleteCouldn't view or find the video on YT. (Tried to comment w my Google account but when choosing that option I was asked to create a blog)
ReplyDeleteThe video was taken down by YouTube unfortunately. There is no way it can be viewed.
DeleteIt was taken down because it led to sexual harassment and violent threats to staff from people across the country. If you go far enough left, you wrap around to the right. This video was beloved by "Trumpers," whether it was intended to do so or not, and led to the badgering of some of the most vulnerable of staff, those at the counter who can fear attack in a very real way, given the shooting at the VTA . Doxing at its worst.
DeleteThat is incorrect. Whomever supplied you with that information is incorrect. The man (alias Bay Area Transparency) who video recorded this 'first amendment audit' of Emeryville City Hall in this story has also done many other city halls and police stations throughout the Bay Area and beyond. He tests government agencies in their responses to his legal recording of government function. Emeryville City Hall was a 'fail' but so are many other city halls and police stations. All the other videos are still posted at his YouTube channel. The Emeryville video was taken down because of a third party complaint that he violated something copyrighted (sometimes copyrighted music being played audibly in the background). Many other government agencies that have failed his audits would also love to have YouTube take down his video but they have been unsuccessful because of no copyright violations. In America we still get to record government employees doing their work, like it or not (not in your case).
DeleteThe 'Trumper' charge is the new way to castigate anybody for anything the one doing the charging doesn't like. It's the new scarlet letter. The staff at Emeryville City Hall are protected by the law. We don't need to add more, extra-legal protection that comes with a built in erosion of the public's Constitutional rights. They have their rights and we have ours and both sides want to increase their rights at the other's expense. Luckily the rule of law is (still) strong in America and we're not going to be taking down anybody's rights....unless Trump wins (irony alert!). Thanks for commenting.