First Amendment: Speech, Protest & Recording
Speaking, protesting, and recording are among the strongest protections you hold, and among the least understood. Guides to filming the police, First Amendment audits, your rights at a protest, whether hate speech is protected, when a private employer or platform can restrict you, and when the government can’t punish you for what you say.
All First Amendment: Speech, Protest & Recording guides
- Your Rights at a Protest: What Police Can and Cannot Do
Your First Amendment rights at a protest — where you can assemble, what police can and can't do, dispersal orders, and how to stay safe and lawful.
- Can Police Order a Protest to Disperse? Unlawful Assembly and Dispersal Orders
Can police order a protest to disperse or ban a public assembly? When dispersal orders are lawful, what makes an assembly unlawful, crossing police lines.
- What Are First Amendment Audits?
What First Amendment audits are, why 'auditors' film police and public buildings, what's legally protected, and where the line to interference or trespass is.
- Can You Film Inside or Outside a Police Station?
Filming police stations: your First Amendment right to record outside vs. inside, what rules lobbies can set, and how to film safely.
- The ‘Heckler’s Veto’ and Counter-Protests
What the heckler's veto is and why the government generally can't silence a speaker because others react angrily — plus the rights of counter-protesters.
- Can You Be Arrested for Recording the Police?
Whether you can be arrested for filming police: the charges officers misuse (obstruction, interference, wiretapping), what's actually protected, and how to stay safe.
- Is Your Right to Record the Police Under Attack?
Courts recognize a right to film police, yet officers still interfere. The circuit consensus, new laws creating buffer zones, and the tactics used to stop recording.
- Is It Legal to Film or Record Someone in Public?
Is it legal to film or record someone in public? Photography is protected, but audio can trigger two-party consent laws. Know the rules and limits.
- Can the Government Punish You for Criticizing It?
Why the First Amendment bars the government from retaliating against you for criticism — retaliatory arrests, the Nieves rule, and how to recognize and respond to it.
- Is Hate Speech Protected by the First Amendment?
Whether hate speech is protected in the U.S. — why offensive speech generally is, the narrow exceptions like true threats and incitement, and where speech loses protection.
- Do You Need a Permit to Protest?
When you need a permit to protest and when you don't: spontaneous demonstrations, marches and sound equipment, and the limits on what a city can require.
- Flag Burning and Symbolic Speech: What the First Amendment Protects
Why flag burning and other symbolic speech are protected by the First Amendment, the key case Texas v. Johnson, and where symbolic conduct loses protection.
- Can You Be Fired for What You Say? The First Amendment and Employers
Why the First Amendment usually doesn't stop a private employer from firing you for your speech — and the limited protections for government workers and certain activity.
- Free Speech on Private Property: Malls, Campuses, and Social Media
Why the First Amendment usually doesn't protect your speech on private property or private platforms — and the state and campus exceptions that sometimes do.
- Has the Supreme Court Ruled on Your Right to Record Police?
Filming police and the Supreme Court: SCOTUS hasn't ruled directly, but federal courts treat recording police as a First Amendment right.