Recording the police can be an effective tool for transparency and oversight, but a new report shows how far the New York Police Department will go to keep from being filmed.

Courts have generally upheld a right to film so long as citizens don’t physically obstruct official police business. But police departments are constantly relitigating the question. In 2018, for instance, North Carolina police claimed that a right to record the police did not include a right to livestream the police. A federal appeals court rejected that argument in February.

This week, an article in Gothamist profiled “First Amendment auditors” who film in government buildings, including police stations, to test the boundaries of what is and is not allowed. One activist in particular, SeanPaul Reyes, posts his encounters with police in New York City on the YouTube account Long Island Audit. He has been arrested multiple times for filming.