A federal district judge is allowing a suit to proceed pitting a online news photographer against the town officials of Cumming, Georgia over her right to videotape a city council meeting. The photographer, Nydia Tisdale, claims her rights were violated when the police seized her camera and used force to remove her from the meeting. (Daily Report, October 6, 2014, by R. Robin McDonald)
The judge affirmed Tisdale’s First Amendment right to record the meeting that the judge found was a “limited public fora” allowing “content-neutral conditions for the time, place, and manner of access,” all narrowly tailored to serve a significant government interest. The judge said Tisdale showed enough evidence to question that blocking the videotaping served a narrow interest. (Volokh Conspiracy in The Washington Post, October 7, 2014, by Eugene Volokh)