The library
Rights & resources
Start with the Constitution. Move to the forum, the statute, the case, and the facts. This library teaches the research path instead of handing you a slogan.
Educational information only. Constitutional doctrine, statutes, policies, and recording rules vary by jurisdiction and change over time. These pages are not legal advice.
Start here · three stops
Build the framework before the argument.
Constitution desk · amendment I
First Amendment 101
A plain-English map of religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition—and what the text does not automatically guarantee.
Read the brief →Foundations
Constitution basics
How the original Constitution, amendments, federalism, and judicial interpretation fit together when people ask what a right protects.
Read the brief →Constitution desk
The amendments map
A focused guide to the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments—and how to avoid treating them as interchangeable.
Read the brief →Constitution desk · amendments I–X
Bill of Rights map
A fast, accurate orientation to the first ten amendments and the questions each one does—and does not—answer in the field.
Read the brief →Location law
Where you are matters
Why a sidewalk, government lobby, courthouse interior, shopping center, and transit platform can carry different rules.
Read the brief →Speech doctrine
Neutral rules, real limits
How content-neutral limits can regulate the conditions of expressive activity without deciding which viewpoint wins.
Read the brief →Public accountability
Recording police
What federal civil-rights materials say about recording public police activity, plus the limits that still matter in the field.
Read the brief →State-law desk
Audio is its own question
Why silent video, public audio, private conversation, consent, and wiretap statutes must be researched separately.
Read the brief →Research skills
Read the source
A repeatable method for separating statutory text, agency policy, court holdings, dicta, and internet commentary.
Read the brief →Field practice
Safety is part of the story
Practical standards for documenting public interactions without baiting, blocking, escalating, or exposing private people.
Read the brief →Federal civil-rights law
When rights are violated
What 42 U.S.C. § 1983 generally does, what it does not do, and why a video clip is not a complete legal claim.
Read the brief →Utah first · state law
State constitutions
Why a state constitution can provide its own language and protections, and how to research it without assuming every state follows the same path.
Read the brief →Accountability tools
Follow the paper trail
How public-records research supports documentary work, why access rules vary, and how to describe a request honestly.
Read the brief →Liability doctrine
Qualified immunity
A guide to the legal shield protecting government officials, how it operates in federal civil-rights cases, and why the standard is high.
Read the brief →Property boundaries
Public property trespass
Understanding when government officials can lawfully issue a trespass warning on public premises, and how to de-escalate.
Read the brief →Need state-specific answers?
Use the research briefs as a foundation, then open the state guide desk. Draft guides stay marked until current primary sources are verified.
Open state guides