One thing I think First Amendment auditors shouldn't do

So-called "First Amendment auditing" is the practice that some people, especially in the United States, do where they go to public places and the publicly accessible areas of government buildings with cameras to see if their constitutional right to film in public is respected by government officials and employees (and the occasional private security guard).

The best and most experienced auditors know all the relevant laws and know what they can and can't do, and where they can and can't go, and will obey lawful orders by police officers. (Whether they obey clearly unlawful orders tends to depend on the auditor and the situation.)

There is one type of governmental building with public access that I think is a bit dubious for First Amendment auditors to go with their cameras, even though a few of them like to do so. And those places are court houses.

Some auditors believe that the right to photograph in public also covers the publicly accessible areas of court houses, and there are many videos of them going to such buildings and getting into heated arguments with the security guards and the police because, quite often, photography will have been banned within the premises of the court house, usually by the order of a judge. Some judges allow it, but in a good majority of American court houses it's forbidden.

I am not a lawyer nor have I studied in any way extensively the relevant laws and court decisions in this regard, but it is my understanding that this is a very gray area, and I genuinely believe that First Amendment auditors should stay clear of this gray area, for their own good.

The problem with court houses is that judges have a huge amount of say with regard to the rules of conduct within the building. Not just the court rooms themselves, but the entire building. And judges are not just your random run-of-the-mill minimum-salary government employee. They are pretty high on the legislative ladder of government.

Judges can legally ban photography within a court room (especially when a session is ongoing), and as far as I know whether judges can ban photography within a courthouse in its entirety has never really been tested in the highest federal courts.

I don't think it's a very good idea for auditors to test this. The reason is that judges' orders are extremely hard to combat, even if they are technically unconstitutional. It's an extreme uphill battle. (Judges have complete immunity against lawsuits by individuals, and the only recourse that a citizen has against a judge is to make a complaint to a state or a federal court, and this is something that's full of bureaucratic hurdles and red tape, and a huge amount of government officials unwilling to go against judges.)

If my opinion were asked, it would be that auditors should just leave court houses alone, for their own good. There are plenty of other places they can go to. It's not really a hill worth dying on. It's not a huge loss to anybody if filming is not allowed within court houses.