Towns Restricting Areas of Public Buildings in Response to ‘First Amendment Audits’

STONE HARBOR – At the April 4 Stone Harbor Council meeting, members of the governing body discussed proposals to restrict access to areas in municipal buildings. The discussion was the latest in similar conversations occurring in municipal meetings across the county.
What has given life to this exploration of restricted space in public buildings is a social movement in which activists and self-identified citizen journalists engage in tests of the constitutional right to photograph and video record in public spaces.
The movement is forcing municipalities to secure and restrict areas of public buildings in order to protect the confidentiality of citizen and municipal information.
What towns like Stone Harbor, Avalon, Cape May, Wildwood Crest, and West Wildwood have been doing by ordinance is to designate certain spaces within public buildings as areas with restricted access. Appropriate signage is then posted.
In many towns across the country, training sessions have been offered to employees to prepare them for how to respond in a “First Amendment auditor” interaction.