I understand that the Internet is not for everyone. Some things are not for me (lawn darts, professional wrestling, and glue sniffing jump to mind). So I fully understand that one is not always up on everything.
Judges, however, I hold to a higher standard. If you are a judge you could be hearing a case on emotional abuse, extortion, brain surgery malpractice or terrorism. You need to be able to research very complex issues and understand briefs on those issues.
So Reuters comes along and tells me that a judge in England, who is hearing a terrorism case, had to stop the case to have the term "web site" explained to him.
"The trouble is I don't understand the language. I don't really understand what a Web site is," he told a London court during the trial of three men charged under anti-terrorism laws.
Prosecutor Mark Ellison briefly set aside his questioning to explain the terms "Web site" and "forum." An exchange followed in which the 59-year-old judge acknowledged: "I haven't quite grasped the concepts."
One truly would expect that 15 years of hype and mainstreaming would be adequate to impart the meaning of "web site" to even the least conversant members of society.
Therefore, I have to believe that an educated man who is in the business of understanding society and ruling on its activities - and who can't even define "web site" - is wilfully excluding himself.
It is more than a little disheartening when you spend a lot of your time trying to work out ways for people to cooperate, communicate and exchange information and there is a group of influential people who directly impact society and specifically avoid observing the world in which they live.
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In 1993 I was clerking for the presiding judge in a courthouse in CT and there was talk of giving each judge a computer (as it happened they all got lap tops a few years later). He intimated that he had no idea of computers, and that to my generation using a computer was "like reading a book."
I am not a privilged 59 yr old guy in England, but I am a 40 yr old American who doesn't know anything about downloading music or blackberries and such.
Technology changes faster than you can blink these days. I'm still getting used to CD's. Even with the progress of the 20th century, change is incredibly rapid. Perhaps it's GOOD the judge didn't know what a website was. Since was does having "a website" make one a criminal? (or so we should like to think). If having "a website" is a criminal offence in the UK, you may have a point. Otherwise it is a secondary issue before the Court. "omigod, he doesn't even know like how to text."
Not all of us are computer geeks (or "geniuses") and some people like to be Luddites. Some people like to live on farms--should I criticize them for not being close to a McDonald's or Chinese take-out?
The solution is instead of an explaination in open court, y'all take a recess and go into chambers to explain why this use of technology (anyone can unnerstand that, even a wrinkly Brit) is a danger
Posted by: Dave | 17 May 2007 at 22:50