Holy Crap My Hair Is On Fire

Old people asks about the difference between an email and a pager.

by TheRealEdwin on 22/04/10 at 9:00 am

I think the sentiment “Holy Fucking Shit” aptly describes the horror I felt when I read this article.

During oral arguments today in the case City of Ontario v. Quon, which considers whether police officers had an expectation of privacy in personal (and sexually explicit) text messages sent on pagers issued to them by the city, the justices of the Supreme Court at times seemed to struggle with the technology involved.The first sign was about midway through the argument, when Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. – who is known to write out his opinions in long hand with pen and paper instead of a computer – asked what the difference was “between email and a pager?”

I really thought this was an Onion article that got picked up by a legit news outlet. But no, it was real. The highest minds in the land can’t comprehend the difference between an email and a pager. In 2010. We were suppose to have flying cars ten years ago and the brightest minds in the land are just as clueless as my grandparents! At least my parents understand the difference or at least have used both so they can see the difference.

At one point, Justice Anthony Kennedy asked what would happen if a text message was sent to an officer at the same time he was sending one to someone else.

“Does it say: ‘Your call is important to us, and we will get back to you?’” Kennedy asked.

Justice Antonin Scalia wrangled a bit with the idea of a service provider.

“You mean (the text) doesn’t go right to me?” he asked.

Then he asked whether they can be printed out in hard copy.

“Could Quon print these spicy little conversations and send them to his buddies?” Scalia asked.

It wasn’t just the justices who had technical difficulties. When Justice Samual Alito asked Quon’s attorney Dieter Dammeier if officers could delete text messages from their pagers in a way that would prevent the city from retrieving them from the wireless carrier later, Dammeier said that they could.

A few minutes later, Alito gave Dammeier another shot at that question.

“Are you sure about your answer on deletion?” Alito asked.

Dammeier admitted that he didn’t know. “I couldn’t be certain,” he said.

More on oral arguments in the case here on Lawyers USA Online.

How the hell did this happen? How can we let law and policy be dictated by those who don’t even understand the very basics of what they are messing with? How do we fix this? I seriously doubt that the next Supreme Court nominee will be as well versed in technology as the current crop. I understand the need to pick older, experienced and knowledgeable people to man the courts, but at least make them take a few classes at the local community college. If this scares the living crap out of you, seriously consider donating to the EFF. It’s well worth it.

Source