It obviously didn’t matter to him that his actions made people feel scared or intimidated or angry. It obviously didn’t matter to him that just weeks earlier, a masked man murdered one of the state’s best-known legislators and her husband and shot two others. It didn’t appear to matter to him at all that in a nation where hundreds of mass shootings occur each year, people might get a little nervous around a masked stranger silently videotaping them.
“My rights don’t end where your feelings begin,” he said, which is also the mantra of the site where his video ended up.
And there was nothing anyone could do.
The man is part of a network of “First Amendment auditors” who post videos on social media. It’s not a new phenomenon; it’s been around since at least COVID days. The so-called auditors loiter around city halls and libraries, ignoring requests for identification and filming staff and members of the public despite pleas to stop, proving, I guess, that they have a constitutional right to be jerks. Hopefully they don’t turn people against the First Amendment along the way.
Before long, Albert Lea’s video was posted on YouTube for the whole world to watch. So far, it’s gotten 19,000 views. I’ve been debating whether to give it any more exposure, but my job is to reveal, not conceal. So, if you must, the link is there. He also further demonstrates his own courage by posting under a pseudonym.
And it gets worse. Angela Moller has taken to social media herself, saying their store has received harassing phone calls from around the country since the video was posted. It’s not enough to scare ordinary members of the public; now their goons are following up.