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Big Brother To Watch Judges?

Posted by jamie on from the justice-is-blind dept.

One week from today, the U.S. Judicial Conference will decide whether judges and their staff can handle grown-up responsibilities like ... using the internet. No, you did not click onto The Onion by mistake: after heated disagreement earlier this year, the issue is coming to a head. Judge Alex Kozinski of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has a great Wall Street Journal opinion piece, today only. (It wants your email; try me@privacy.net.) Jeffrey Rosen's analysis in TNR is another good take on it. If you don't think the men and women who hold people's lives in their hands need daddy and mommy looking over their shoulder, you might take a moment to fire off a quick, polite email per the EFF's suggestion. If surveillance can invade a judge's workplace, it's for damnsure there's nothing keeping it out of yours.

1 of 234 comments (clear)

  1. So what should be done? by update() · · Score: 4, Informative
    So, what is the answer?

    My ongoing complaint about the YRO articles is that whatever is currently being proposed is always ridiculed in favor of something else. Government regulation? Schools and libraries should set policies. Schools and libraries restricting access? It should be up to parents. Parents take responsibility? How dare they!

    In this case, I would be extremely reluctant to join a workplace that monitored my computer usage. But unlike the hypocritical, dishonest bigots who edit Slashdot, I recognize the real issues here and I'm curious to hear what people think is an equitable way to deal with them.

    Unfortunately, the reality is that workers in the judicial offices are not capable of policing themselves. ("A letter Lee sent on March 5 contains a list of all the movies accessed by a particular user between 12:12 p.m. and 1:35 p.m., including /bigtits/bix/mer021/3.mpg and /personal4/fuckmovie/asian/07.mpg. ")

    It seems to me the issues are:

    • Workers ought to be working, not posting long-winded rants on Slashdot. ;-)
    • The workplace faces liability for sexual and racial harassment suits and copyright violations. That's you and me who has to pick up the tab when the DOJ gets hit with a multimillion dollar suit.
    • The network has to remain functional, which in this case it frequently was not, as a result of downloads and file sharing.