{"id":19478,"date":"2017-12-17T15:51:20","date_gmt":"2017-12-17T20:51:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=19478"},"modified":"2017-12-17T15:51:20","modified_gmt":"2017-12-17T20:51:20","slug":"nydia-tisdale-should-be-emulated-not-punished-lake-to-judge-2017-12-17","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2017\/12\/nydia-tisdale-should-be-emulated-not-punished-lake-to-judge-2017-12-17.html","title":{"rendered":"Nydia Tisdale should be emulated, not punished: LAKE to Judge 2017-12-17"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\nYou can also write a letter of support. Please send it today before\r\nthe\r\n\r\nsentencing hearing 9AM December 18, 2017<\/a>.\r\n

\r\n

\r\n\r\n\"Nydia<\/a>\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nLowndes Area Knowledge Exchange\r\n
\r\n\r\n3338 Country Club Road #L336, Valdosta, GA 31605\r\n
\r\n\r\nwww.l-a-k-e.org<\/a>\r\n
\r\nlakesubmissions@gmail.com\r\n
\r\n229-242-0102\r\n<\/span>\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nDecember 17, 2017\r\n

\r\nHon. Senior Judge Martha Christian\r\n
\r\nDawson County Judges Office\r\n
\r\n25 Justice Way, Suite 4202\r\n
\r\nDawsonville, GA 30534\r\n
\r\nC\/o Catherine Bernard\r\n
\r\ncatherine@bernardlawoffices.com\r\n

\r\nYour Honor,\r\n

\r\nNydia Tisdale is an inspiration for everyone who is in favor of the\r\nFirst Amendment, especially citizen journalists such as ourselves.\r\nHer years of educating local governments about Georgia’s open\r\nmeetings laws by handing out materials, and of shining a light on\r\nlocal government activities by videoing their meetings, are\r\nexemplary and should be emulated, not punished.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\r\n\"With<\/a>\r\n
\r\nPhoto: John S. Quarterman for LAKE, 14 October 2016<\/a>.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThe misdemeanor conviction of Nydia Tisdale makes no sense, since\r\n\r\n\r\nshe was acquitted of the other charges. She did nothing wrong when\r\nshe resisted an assailant unknown to her who removed her forcibly\r\nfrom videoing a public meeting to which she was not only invited:\r\nshe helped advertise that meeting. We urge you to sentence her to no\r\npenalties.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nFor years Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE) has been videoing\r\nlocal government and other public meetings, and putting them on\r\nYouTube, usually followed by an interpretive blog post. The\r\nconviction of Nydia Tisdale has already had a chilling effect on our\r\nwork. Governor Nathan Deal spoke in Valdosta recently, and we felt\r\ncompelled to ask permission for videoing not only of the president\r\nof the Chamber of Commerce that hosted the event, but also of the\r\ngovernor’s entourage, with the Valdosta-Lowndes County Chamber of\r\nCommerce president as witness.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nNydia Tisdale does not deserve punishment; she deserves honor. And\r\nin fact she already received the 2015 Open Government Hero Award\r\nfrom the Georgia First Amendment Foundation as an “exemplary\r\nadvocate deserving of recognition.” We ask you to honor Nydia\r\nTisdale further by voiding any sentence in her case.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nJohn S. Quarterman\r\n
\r\nGretchen Quarterman\r\n
\r\nCarolyn Selby\r\n
\r\nLowndes Area Knowledge Exchange\r\n

\r\n

See also\r\nPDF<\/a>.\r\n

\r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>\r\n

Investigative reporting costs money, for open records requests, copying, web hosting, gasoline, and cameras, and with sufficient funds we can pay students to do further research. You can donate to LAKE today<\/a>!<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You can also write a letter of support. Please send it today before the sentencing hearing 9AM December 18, 2017. Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange 3338 Country Club Road #L336, Valdosta, GA 31605 www.l-a-k-e.org lakesubmissions@gmail.com 229-242-0102 December 17, 2017 Hon. Senior Judge Martha Christian Dawson County Judges Office 25 Justice Way, Suite 4202 Dawsonville, GA 30534 […]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[97,72,11,20,3],"tags":[10093,1905,8701,8031,10094,8730,8702,12,7,46,2390,7973,8700,6,8765,10092],"class_list":["post-19478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-incarceration","category-lake","category-law","category-transparency","tag-2015-open-government-hero-award","tag-assault","tag-georgia","tag-georgia-first-amendment-foundation","tag-gfaf","tag-incarceration","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-nathan-deal","tag-nydia-tisdale","tag-pumpkin-farm","tag-transparency","tag-valdosta","tag-vlcoc","tag-wrongful-arrest"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-54a","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19478"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19480,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19478\/revisions\/19480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}