Slashdot Mirror
Judge Doesn't Know What a Web Site is
An anonymous reader writes "A British judge admitted on Wednesday he was struggling to cope with basic terms like "Web site" in the trial of three men accused of inciting terrorism via the Internet.
Judge Peter Openshaw broke into the questioning of a witness about a Web forum used by alleged Islamist radicals.
"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.""
Jurors are frequently disqualified for knowing too much, but it should be the opposite for a judge, I think.
Have Ted Stevens explain it to him
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
That seems to be common in the US also.
The judge wasn't so proud as to pretend understanding and then issue a potentially unjust ruling.
Would that all judges had the same strength of character in this regard.
Give him credit for admitting he didn't understand. Clearly he needs to be able to understand the concept in order to rule on the case. What are the options when a judge just doesn't understand? Do we need a "technical" set of judges to handle these types of cases?
Cheers.
Mark
Thank god I'm not the only one...
"Heh. Totally pwned that prosecutor. ZOMG! Ponies!"
website: noun: a doorway to a series of tubes
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
Some might say that 59 isn't that old, but the fact remains that there are still plenty of people that grew up before the computer and/or internet revolution. Eventually, however, having some knowledge of technical terms will be inevitable.
True story:
I once was in a conversation with a highly paid Ivy League-educated lawyer. Somehow (don't ask) the fact that the sun's surface temperature is thousands of degrees came up. The lawyer said, "oh, is that how it stays up, then?" No one knew what she meant. "Well, is that why the sun doesn't fall down, because hot things rise?" she continued. Stunned silence. Then everyone speaking at once about, you know, the copernican view of the universe. The highly paid lawyer was not embarrassed. Instead she asked a lot of questions. They started out stupid, but over the course of 15 minutes of intense questioning she picked
up pretty much everything I knew about solar and planetary astronomy (which is a lot). By the end she was asking really clever questions I couldn't answer.
Lesson I learned: you get to be a highly paid lawyer by being smart, not by knowing anything in particular. And I would happily have her defend me in a trial.
Just try looking up "person" in Black's Law Dictionary. The wording is important, as specific terms mean specific strings of legal precedents. Judges recuse themselves for good reasons all the time, and this guy did the right thing. Would you rather he'd judged a case with vague user-end impressions?
I wish everyone who wasn't up to an important job would say so.
What? Stories of questionable value? How can this be? This is blasphemy! This is madness!
Looks like everyone took the sensationalist bait on this.
Article is pretty light on details but it seems like the judge is trying to understand what a website actually "is"...it seems like an issue in this case is where the defendants' activities took place.
So perhaps he realized he needed to know more than "a window that comes up on your computer" as far as what a website is. It doesn't seem unreasonable for a 59-year-old in a completely non-technical job to not know how a website is put together; "what is a website?" is a feasible way to ask not only "describe this thing to me", but also "what makes up this thing?". Maybe he was asking the latter.
Look, nobody expects judges to be experts in everything. In particular, nobody expects judges to be knowledgeable about something that was INVENTED when they were in their 40s and was really a fad-for-young-people until a relatively short time ago.
What we expect judges to do is make fair rulings.
How can a judge who doesn't know anything about web sites and online forums make reasonable rulings? Well, he can't. And he knows this. So, the judge -- and MOST JUDGES -- have two choices:
- Learn enough to make a fair ruling
- Fake it and pick the lawyer with the nicest tie
Now, it has been fairly obvious that COMPLETELY CLUESS judges are making case law around the world. That is quite clearly BAD.
A judge willing to admit he lacks the deep understanding required to make a ruling, and taking steps to work around/solve the problem? NO PROBLEM, in my opinion, as long as he comes to the table with an open mind, impartiality, and a good sense of jurisprudence.
That said -- I think the judge should spend a few hours participating in IRC, reading bash.org, taking part in a forum about something he likes (maybe his car), checking out tubgirl, some pr0n, masturbating and so forth. Then maybe he will actually understand the medium. Somebody (prosecutor) should suggest that.
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
No, just the opposite. He's perfect for true justice. The solicitors will have to spend an hour or so having someone explain the basic concepts of the internet. From there the judge can listen to the facts of the case without any clouding of his judgment from any preconceived notions.
... blah blah blah."
"This is a web page. There are about a billion of them in existence, and about a billion people viewing the web pages. Anyone can pay to have access to the internet. Anyone can get free or very cheap space to put up their own web pages. We are accusing these men of doing just that to incite hatred
(Don't bother correcting my estimates of web sites and users. I know it's wrong)
-- Will program for bandwidth
He's ready to retire and take up photography again. And he LOVES the digital options. He's already setup his own website and uses Photoshop. He knows more about digital cameras than I do.
It's not age. It's interest.
He's found that his old interest has taken a new turn with computerization and he has spent his spare time learning all about it.
Absolutely. In an ideal world every case would be judged from first principles, in this case from basic mathematics and Charles Babbage upwards.
Sadly, we have too many accusations and too little money for that to work. But at least the judge had the good grace to ask for an explanation, which they sometimes do on behalf of the jury if there is one. Remember that the technicalities of a website, rather than using Google and then reading one, are still relatively specialist areas for Joe Public, especially when they might be expected to make a decision on those details.
Please consider this account deleted, I just can't be bothered with the spam anymore.
After talking with lawyers and paralegals that I know personally, I think that most geeks would have a natural talent for law. At the very least, they have a talent for legal research, as witnessed by the stuff that happens on Groklaw
My blog
Ok, that is NOT what "Luddite" means. Ignorance alone does not make one a Luddite. Would you also call me a Luddite, because I don't understand the semiconductor physics inside of this computer I'm using? The Luddites were people who actively sought to destroy technology that would affect their livelyhoods. This judge does not appear to display either fear or antagonism towards this "web-site" technology, only difficulty understanding it (or maybe only finding a suitably concrete definition for his legalistic mind!).
Ignorance in situations of justice is only useful when you have ignorance of the criminal or case being tried. You don't want a judge or jury to have preconceptions about the innocence or guilt of the parties involved.
That doesn't mean you want legal decision-makers completely ignorant of even the basic working infrastructure of our modern society. Far from your notion that the judge can just "listen to the facts" -- rather than being able to take internet information for granted while his mind moves on to the pertinent facts of the case, he's wasting valuable brain cycles trying to figure out what this whole web site thing is on the fly as he either puzzles over it himself or TAKES SOMEONE ELSE'S WORD that what it is is important or not important to the case. Is it relevant to innocence or guilt? Is it not? He doesn't know because he's too much in the dark to even have figured out what my 90 year old grandmother knows.
Besides the issues of not knowing a basic building block of the case, it's just appalling that a judge in a modern society could have his head so far buried in the sand to not know what a web site is. Does his lack of observational skills extend to facts being dispensed in the case?
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
I agree. I have a handful of friends that graduated with CS degrees in order to enroll in law school.
My opinion is that our minds are already geared for the IF definition THEN result, EXCEPT WHEN whatever kind of language that most laws that I've read are written in.
You are awash in a sea of fiercely stated opinions. Obvious exits are: 'File->Quit', 'Reply', and 'Page Down'.
I'd much rather have judges like him who say "Look, I just don't get this stuff, I've never had the time or inclination to really deal with it. Someone teach me." As opposed to judges who pretend they have a clue and then make completely bonehead decisions. If more judges were like him and came forward to admit when they don't feel up to par on the background material in a case, maybe the legal system would be a couple percentage points less FUBAR.
What?? A government official makes comments that shows he knows nothing of a particular technology that is vital to him performing his job? Wow....good thing this kinda stuff never happens in the USA!
Ride the skies
Is it possible for me to just say "DUH" and not have my karma changed to negative or worse?
Of course it is a non-jury terrorist trial; the defendants are charged with terrorism. But not just know the law- a judge should be LEARNED, well informed in other areas as well. Else how can he know if a law makes any sense at all? LIVR- Learned, Impartial, and Very Relaxed....
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Its things like this that *did* make me go to law school.
I currently work for a judge and he refuses to have a computer in his chambers. Well, ok... there is a computer in his chambers but its unplugged and in the corner, with the screen facing the wall. His secretary prints out his email for him and he dictates his replies onto tape.
The scary thing is that I'm not actually kidding or even exaggerating.
That said, he does have a computer at home and a personal email address that he seems quite capable of using.
I would hope so, I'm kinda happy the judge didn't just try to act like he knew what was going on. I think, "Good for him".
Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
If one is in a position of authority, and is expected to determine how laws should be applied to society -- one has an obligation to be a part of society and understand that society. This judge has clearly done neither. He has failed to enter the 21st century along with the rest of his countrymen, and has failed to keep up with the most basic social trends. Is is therefore unfit for work. Dismissed.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
I can believe it. A friend of mine works for a group of lawyers who insist that *every* email they receive (which can be hundreds per day per person - they're not shy with this 'techie' stuff) is printed out and filed with the appropriate case. This stuff eventually gets shuffled off to an off-site storage facility - usually without ever getting looked at. This is not a particularly small office - and they have appropriate backups in place. Unbelievable...
Here's a good judge. It's very professional to admit that he doesn't understand something.
Perhaps one would think that it would be easy to explain what a web site is. However, the definition of a website might not be so easy as you may think. Judges, like computer scientists, often have to tackle with very fine details and seek answers to subtle questions. For example: Should every website use the HTTP protocol? If yes, what if there is a law saying terrorist websites are illegal but the defendands used a slightly customised HTTP version? Furthermore, should every website include webpages? What if the law prohibits terrorist webpages, but the defendands just placed some gzip or pdf files on a public indexed directory served by Apache httpd? Is a non-indexed directory served by Apache a website? Can a website on the Principality of Sealand be prosecuted under US law? If you tunnel HTTP traffic through another protocol, would this qualify as website data? Is a website a publication? Is it still a publication if you open a website on a non-networked server? If you create a website unreadable by humans but readable by computers, would this qualify as a publication? Is a website that was online only for 3 minutes a kind of publication? Is the printout of a website still a website? Would the browser cache be regarded as copying potentially copyrighted material? If a very sucky webserver can only handle 3 requests per minute and you hit your Refresh/Reload button 4 times within a minute bringing the server down, would this be a DoS attack?
Absolutely. However, I think the gap is MUCH larger than we think it is. I am certain all of us have had that, "are you really serious?" moment when talking to someone over 50 and the gap between the generations is particularly large when it comes to computers and technology.
Every younger generation thinks the older generation is clueless. I understand that. I just think in this case, the gap between the two is much much larger than for previous generations. Perhaps those who had electricity vs those who didn't might be comparable but it is not the same as the baby-boomers vs. depression era folks.
Don't forget how big of a change computers and the "information society" is to the world as a whole. Nothing like this has ever been seen or experienced by mankind before. It is truly revolutionary. We are the first generation to "get it".
Secretary: "Sir, you got slashdotted." Judge, with curiosity: "Slashdotted?" Secretary: "Yes sir, it's a news website" Judge: "A website? um...?"
BA
When I was in college, I took an environmental law class. The guy teaching it used to work county public health or whatnot and had a few good stories.
One of the stories was to show how judges are sometimes in the position to interpret laws and regulations that are outside their scope of knowledge. One story goes that a case was about dumping of hazardous waste. The waste wasn't specifically listed as hazardous, but there are other procedures to test the compound's toxicity - such as exposing a certain species of fish to the compound for X days and seeing how they are doing at the end. If the fish are dead, then it's pretty obvious that the compound is toxic.
In this case, the fish toxicity testing data was presented to the judge and it went something as follows:
Judge: And do we have any of these fish in our county?
Answer: No, we don't have any of these fish in our county.
Judge: Then what do we have to worry about?
Grump
Is it true that more people vote for the winner of American Idol, than vote for the president? -Ali G.
Not a very good troll, really...
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
It's like blood stains - we've all seen them but a judge still wants an expert to explain the fine points.
Hydrogen is lighter then air you know!
Eventually it will all fuse to Helium which is still lighter then air, so we'll be OK.
But when it fuses further it will all come crashing down, sometime in 2037 or so.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
You're absolutely right.
We've all read some of the overlong slashdot replies/nerd emails that go to great lengths and painstaking detail, dismantling every aspect of the parent poster's point. Usually these posts include specific references to higher authority - textbooks, articles, past examples and other random websites.
Its exactly this combination of arrogance and pedantry that makes a good lawyer. The obsessive need to be absolutely, comprehensively and demonstratably RIGHT and for everyone to know it.
I knew that when I went to law school. Two things did surprise me though:
1. Law nerds have exactly the same sense of humour as computer nerds (pun or other liguistic trick based jokes, Monty Python etc); and
2. It really is exactly the same thought pattern for legal problem solving as it is for software development problem solving.
A misplaced semi-colon or the use of the wrong synonym can be as destructive in a piece of legislation or a 20 page judgment as it can in any piece of code.
Yeah, but laws usually run deeper recursions. If x then y, unless z, except when a, provided that b, unless c and d, but only when based on e and not f, with...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Several, including one that is 70+ who can tell me in detail why he thinks Intel's current CPU architecture is corner cutting crap and who actually did repair electonic medical equipment while he was hospitalised using only a nurses hairpin. Not bad for an electrical engineer who left university before solid state electronics moved out of the lab. Many of the technical folk use their retirement to get more up to date than they had a chance to do before - for example there are old woodworkers moving into putting together their own numerically controlled tools that had not a great deal of computer experience before.
Here's something you'd *never* hear in an U.S. court.
"Ah... yeah, i still got nothin"
Bravo, Judge Limey.
now go read up so you can justifiably preside over such a case.
Seriously, how many judges presiding over tech-related cases right now actually understand what's going on?
If he's in-touch enough with what he's supposed to be doing to say this and not just hand out rulings like the asshats in this country, at least there's hope for one english-speaking judicial system.
Come read my stupid blagablog. Rants and Giggles
>Unbelievable...
Until the *one* discovery request that receives *only* the closed file from the boxes at the off-site facility, 25 years from now.
Then it makes sense. Most of the litigation I was involved in (IANALBIHSLAWITF), had documentation spanning a period of about 1912 to about 1985.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Here is a person, supposedly judging people. Concerning a much larger crime (at least still larger) than anything that we find "usually" connected to the net, like copyright, domain grabbing or slander. We're talking about whether people get their hides skinned for being terrorists, using the net to conspire.
And here's a judge who should come to a verdict. A judge who admits now he doesn't even have the foggiest idea what's going down in this case.
I don't hold that against the judge. Far not! I respect him a lot for having the courage to actually admit he doesn't know it. How many don't have a clue about new technology and still issue verdicts, not knowing at all just WHAT they just did?
Proof? Look at some verdicts concerning the net!
Over here, a judge would simply call in what we call an "expert adviser". These are people, sworn in like judges, with expertise in a relevant field, from IT over linguistics to things like archaeology. For pretty much every field in science our legal apparatus affords itself quite a staff of experts. Yes, they cost.
But they're worth it, believe me that!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
...Not the fact that he doesn't know what a website is, but the fact that he admits to not knowing what a website is. The fact that he doesn't know what it is isn't a problem -- you can teach someone out of their ignorance. But think about how much worse it would be if he did what most judges do, i.e., pretend they know what they're talking about and make poor judgments and court decisions..
I hear there's more than one nowadays.
Yes this guy should be praised for his honesty of his utter ineptitude. What he should do is recuse himself from the case for someone who knows something. And he should be thanked and rewarded. He should then go take some courses to learn something about the internet. Meanwhile judges who don't admit that they don't know what it is should be hunted down and fired or noted that they are inelligible to serve on any technological case.
Contrary to another poster I don't believe that a lack of being knowledgeble in the field brings about true justice. It means that such a person could easily be confused and misled by the guck that the expert and lawyers present to them. It has nothing to do with bias for the justice side of it, it has to do with not being competant enough on the topic to resolve the issue. More time and money will be wasted in trial getting him a clue then actually on the legal matter at hand. How is that good for anybody? It isn't.
If you ask me this is one more sign that serious reform is needed in the judge system, and the whole "tenure for life" good old boys network of judges is the first target. Though not neccessarily true, they are the most likely to be completely ignorant of technology and to have never bothered to learn what the internet is. What's worse is I'd bet that these are same morons who are letting all the legislation regarding to technology through. I say let's test their general knowledge and have endorsements for highly technical cases involving things such as various facets technology. Why not, they have to study tax law if they want to deal with taxes, they should have to study technology and IP law if they want to rule on stuff with that. From the tests results issue endorsements; if they can't pass a test on technology they can't be assigned a case that hinges upon internet technology very simple.
Would you let a foot doctor give you advice on heart surgery? No. And it's not a superiority thing either, I wouldn't let the cardiac surgeon tell me how to treat my feet other. As long as the issue is dealt with respectfully and judges are forth coming let them stay in the system. But when judges are found to be presiding over cases they dont have the proper knowledge of that should be treated just as unethically as a lawyer neglecting to properly represent a client.
My real question, if he's forthcoming enough to admit his lack of knowledge why not be forthright enough to remove yourself from the case to be replaced by someone who knows it to speed up the case. In our country at least I have a right to a speedy trial, which definately does not include educating a judge on the internet.
It's far time judges, teachers and other public officials were held to the same standards that other workers are in regards to time. Time goes on and new technologies come along as well as new techniques and trends. To be a viable worker we have to keep up with these things, why don't they have to? The tenure systems are crippling us.
"Jazz isn't dead, it just smells funny" ~Frank Zappa
EdelFactor
so perl then.
I'm all set.
In reality, I was asked if I was pre-law or a paralegal when I asked an attorney to review my response to Farmers C&D letter on my gripe site. I consider that to be high praise.
As to this judge, he should recuse himself from the case, but should also be lauded for admitting his limitations.
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
Wow.. I can"t believe I could read that within a few seconds of seeing it for the first time. It says: I Am Not A Lawyer But I Have Studied Law And Work In The Field.
A sign I have been readin Slashdot too much
The internet is such a central aspect of life these days the judge is remiss in not having informed himself of at least the basics.
Wish we had a President who could admit his ignorance.
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
Then I'd declare that web sites that don't execute code on external computers should never be considered weapons of terror and that we must hold true to the ideal of convicting real perpetrators of real crimes, of which there are plenty. It's easy to lock up the lunatic fringe that shouts about tearing down society. It's much harder to lock up people like Osama et al, who are not only intent on actually doing so, but also have real weapons at their disposal.
I'm not saying these folk are scapegoats - they may well be genuinely dangerous. I know little to nothing about the case and... I am not a judge.
Thinking about it, this probably is a timeless concern. If a judge stopped similar proceedings in the early 20th century because he didn't understand how the murderer had got away so fast in a carriage without horses, I'd like to think he'd have been similarly ridiculed. Judges aren't required to keep up with modern technology but surely they should be required to keep up with the everday tools of mainstream society? I would have thought any conviction handed down by a judge that was ignorant of the contemporary infrastructural context of the case would be unsound. Yeesh. Who'd be a judge?
OMG, I can't believe that McGyver is over 70 !
OMG, I'm providing a link to McGyver for everyone who isn't as old as I am, and wouldn't be familiar with the cultural reference.
Nearly every reply I see here falls into one of two categories:
- "Wow, what a stupid judge! He doesn't know what a website is, like we teh smaert peoples do!!!"
- "No, the guy is wise to admit his limitation, and ask us, the smaert peoples who know what a website is, to tell him."
The tacit assumption is that it's perfectly clear what a "web site" is.Now, of course, I'm going to call that assumption into question. What is a web site? How do you tell where one web site ends, and where another starts? Is Geocities a web site? Is it rather a collection of web sites? Is it both, simultaneously? How does this decision interact with other legal reasoning that may be relevant to the case? What criteria ought to be applied in the kind of case he's handling?
The judge's supposed "admission" of "ignorance" could, for all that we know from TFA, not be because the judge has no concept of what a website is; it could be because his concept of what a website is is good enough for using, um, web sites, but not good enough for deciding this particular case.
Are you adequate?
How many people, much less judges, know what a website is, really? I mean, how many people understand the distinction between port 80 and HTTP? How many understand that a web forum and a non-web-forum are not different kinds of websites, but merely have different website content?
That kind of understanding requires knowledge that only techies have.
I'm not speaking about this case in particular but about an ignorance of what has become an everyday reality for a majority of the population, at least in the northern hemisphere. The judge in question isn't even a man of terribly advanced years (59 years old). He doesn't need to be be advanced in his understanding of the Internet, surfing the web and posting on Slashdot during his lunch break, but being an educated man who doesn't grasp the concept of a web page is ridiculous.
I'm sure you're right that he can render informed judgements on this case but, really, isn't there a need for any person, let alone a judge, to possess this kind of common knowledge of what is going on in the culture? This judge's office (or, at the very least, that of his clerk/secretary) has probably had Internet access for years. If he lacks the curiosity to find out about the Internet up until now, I have to seriously question his intellect.
Will any precise definition of the word "web site" actually help to decide the merits of this case? I suspect the best conclusion that the judge could reach is that the really important questions are which parties have control over which individual pieces of content, and what responsibilities does such control entail.
That is, I think that the correct conclusion that the judge hopefully will arrive, by questioning people about the term "web site," is that despite the fact that the parties to the case use it in their filings, it is in fact irrelevant to the case. But before you can figure out that the term "web site" is irrelevant, you have to understand it better.
Are you adequate?
The difference I have seen is that when gathering constraints, the CS is an optimist and the legal is a pessimist. What I mean is that when there are wholes in a spec/constraints/contract, I, as a designer, assume we'll all just use standards. Lawyers assume someone will use that hole to screw someone else. In design, there is normally an incentive to make it work, not to impede progress. In law, those holes in the constraints can be worth a lot of money.
Joe
Joe Batt Solid Design
I thought about that when I was "picking my profession", and I did talk to some lawyers and others I knew. At first it seemed a natural fit for me, but as I dug in deeper, I discovered that it wasn't as black and white as I'd hoped.
First, as another poster indicated, there's lots of "if then but else if" clauses. As black and white as a case my appear at first glance, the law is very gray. One can have two courts arrive at two entirely different conclusions on the same basic point, and then the appeals court decide to not take it up because the case isn't interesting. At that point, the implication is that both courts are right (or maybe they're both wrong), but it's no longer a simple truth. Don't even get me started on what one lawyer told me about the words "reasonable" and "prudent" in the context of any legal code.
Second, as strange as it may seem, a lot of practicing law is a matter of avoiding the real issue at hand. Take the SCO case - very little time has been spent addressing the case itself. Almost all the time has been spent on discovery motions, procedural arguments, evidence rules, etc. As a geek, I like to see results fairly quickly in a repeatable and consistent manner. If you told me that I had to write a perl program to compute the area of a triangle, I'd say cool. However, if you then told me that first I had to prove the theorem I'll use, but first I have to agree on the method in which my theorem will be proved, but first I have to decide whether the requester even has standing to ask me to write a program...you get the idea.
Third, I don't disagree on your point about geeks making good researchers. Certainly there's no question we're good at digging stuff up. What remains to be seen is whether we're good at digging everything up. This goes back to my other points. In a way, legal research is like the halting problem - you're never 100% confident that you've pulled every relevant law and ruling. Legal researchers also have to be completely free of bias. Most geeks I know (myself included) tend to feel very strongly on certain issues, and it's only natural that we'd favor facts that support our bias and disfavor those that don't. A good researcher can research the hell out of an issue that they vehemently oppose for the side that they despise. That takes something beyond being good at Google and Lexus.
Nerds? This isn't is 1992. You're not a nerd for knowing what a web site is.
For knowing what Apache is, and how to build and configure a secure installation
from scratch, sure. But for knowing what a web site is? Fuck no. You must've had
your head in the sand or up your ass for the past decade to not have the faintest
clue of what everyone else has been yammering on about.
"Horseless carriage? I'm sorry Mr. Ford, I just don't understand all them fancy
words you're using."
Seriously, he should just recuse himself for cluelessness and maybe consider
retiring. Or at worst consider putting himself in a position where he'll be given
cases he can comprehend.
Were that I say, pancakes?
No, that's not it...
Karma police, arrest this man. He talks in math. He buzzes like a fridge. He's like a detuned radio.
Best way to protect yourself from speeding tickets is to ruthlessly interrogate the officer who gave you the ticket in an attempt to get him to admit he's unsure of something. If you can do that, or show some doubt somewhere else, you can get your ticket overturned.
But if you decide to do that with math, be forewarned: you can really bone yourself in front of the judge if you don't know your trigonometry.
SRSLY.
I see your point, but perhaps its not a lack of curiosity, but a matter of time. He might feel that his time is better spent than learning about computers, and perhaps justifiably so. If he needs to have a cursory knowledge about every possible technology that comes in front of his bench, he would nearly need to spend the rest of his life in school. Medecine, Computers, the Automotive Industry, Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, just to name a few, and that is in addition to whatever changes the legal world may be undergoing. Computers do amazing, powerful things but they are just another tool, and it seems to me that what a person has or hasnt done, and what the intent of doing so was is going to be more important to a judge than the tool they used to do it with. The article is pretty light on details, but if they are being tried for disseminating hate speech, does it really matter if they used a website, or sent out a newsletter with photocopies? I suppose that there is a matter of scale, but that could simply be addressed by "Your Honor, we have have these logs that show that X number of people visited the site and read the material"
I used to handle contracts between various government agencies (GSA, etc) and a computer oem.
You haven't seen legalese, until you've seen government legalese.
Great job. Loved it.
Again, you're misunderstanding me. Let me pose this to you in another way...
Let's say we have a man who, through no fault of his own, has managed to live right up to the present day without being exposed to the Internet. Now, he turns on the television to watch the news and the anchor mentions that "more information about today's top story can be found at our website." Isn't that the point where one would ask "What's a website? Where can I get this information of which they speak?"
Or, let's say that the same fellow never gets exposed to television. Instead, he picks up a newspaper to find out what's going on in the world (you know, something in which educated people tend to have an interest). Maybe the front page has a story about an Internet virus. "What's that? Can I catch Internet from casual contact?" Or, perhaps the paper suggests visiting - I know you're ahead of me here - their website. "What's a website and why would a newspaper have one?"
Do you see what I'm saying here? Anyone paying any attention at all to the outside world is going to have the Internet offered to them (for better or worse, advertising is everywhere), even if s/he has NO friends who mention websites to him/her (what are the chances, honestly?). A human with that much exposure to an alien concept is going to at least want to found out what all the hubbub is about. If s/he doesn't then s/he is purposely separating from the society and culture and, again, that is my objection. While it's true that judges don't have to be our "peers," it's also true that they should be a part of the society on which they're daily sitting in judgement, and they should want to know what said society is up to.
Hmm... then the judge is in good company: Don Knuth does his emailing offline too...
Turns out he's no slouch when it comes to technology.
If you want recursion, then just pick a mathematician. *Every* single idea in current mathematics is derived from the basic axioms. And you can prove everything by these basic axioms. The Theorems and Lemmas are the recursive help tool that is used so we do not have to go to the basics all the time.
What Law has that Mathematics lacks is interpretation and intension. Maths have neither because everything is derived from the axioms. In Law, even the axioms (ie. the constitution or similar) are not exact.
I think I remember a teacher saying it can all be broken down to addition; because subtraction is just reverse addition, multiplication is just shorthand addition, and division is shorthand subtraction. There may have been more to the explanation but that was 10 years ago.
You consider it high praise to be told you think like a lawyer in training? I'm scared of you now.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
Actually, this story got me to thinking of getting a law degree...
Die hard raving geek, with a libertarian streak, getting a law degree. Wonder what I'd do?
I'm thinking IP and (C) law reform?
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
> My opinion is that our minds are already geared for the IF definition THEN result,
> EXCEPT WHEN whatever kind of language that most laws that I've read are written in.
Legal and geek language are equally horrible. And if legalese is too difficult,
just translate it to plain ol' English:
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
# "legalese2en.pl" - Converts legalese to proper English - (c)2007 by Jochen L. Leidner
# $Id$
use strict; # stick to the law of the Camel
while (<>) {
s/a large number of/many/g;
s/a number of/some or several or many or something more precise/g;
s/accord/give/g;
s/accord respect to/respect/g;
s/acquire/get/g;
s/additional/more/g;
s/additionally/also/g;
s/adjacent to/next to or near/g;
s/advert to/mention/g;
s/afforded/given/g;
s/aforementioned/often best omitted/g;
s/ambit/reach or scope/g;
s/any and all/all/g;
s/approximately/about/g;
s/ascertain/find out/g;
s/assist/help/g;
s/at present/now/g;
s/at the place/where/g;
s/at the present time/now/g;
s/at this point in time/now or currently or some such/g;
s/at this time/now or currently or some such/g;
s/attempt/try/g;
s/because of the fact that/because/g;
s/cease/stop/g;
s/cease and desist/stop/g;
s/circumstances in which/when or where/g;
s/cognizant of/aware of or knows/g;
s/commence/start/g;
s/conceal/hide/g;
s/concerning the matter of/about/g;
s/consensus of opinion/consensus/g;
s/consequence/result/g;
s/contiguous to/next to/g;
s/demonstrate/show/g;
s/desire/want/g;
s/despite the fact that/despite or though/g;
s/does not operate to/does not/g;
s/donate/give/g;
s/due to the fact that/because/g;
s/during the course of/during/g;
s/during the time that/while/g;
s/echelon/level/g;
s/elucidate/explain or perhaps clarify/g;
s/endeavor/try/g;
s/evince/show/g;
s/excessive number of/too many/g;
s/exclusively/only/g;
s/exit/leave/g;
s/facilitate/help/g;
s/firstly/first/g;
s/secondly/second/g;
s/for the duration of/during or while/g;
s/for the purpose of doing/to do/g;
s/for the reason that/because/g;
s/forthwith/immediately/g;
s/frequently/often/g;
s/fundamental/basic/g;
s/has a negative impact/hurts or harms/g;
s/(I would argue that|it is arguable that|it could be argued
It is simply inconcievable that a 'normal' person does not know what a web site is.
You don't have to know how a car is designed, built, marketed, and sold, or even know how to drive one; but if you can claim to not know what a car is, you are not *normal*, and therefore NOT FIT TO JUSGE.
"We've all read some of the overlong slashdot replies/nerd emails that go to great lengths and painstaking detail, dismantling every aspect of the parent poster's point. Usually these posts include specific references to higher authority - textbooks, articles, past examples and other random websites."
I do not know what you mean. I've never seen anything like the things you describe, and even a more in-depth analysis of your claims show no signs that the point you make has any validity. Painstanking detail? Dismantling every aspect of a post? I would like to refer you to the researchpaper "On the origin of debating posts on slashdot" by Anonymous Coward, where it is clearly proven that what you describe has never been substantiated, nay, not even an example could be found to demonstrate...
oh...wait...
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
I don't think he should step down. As a judge, he is an expert in the law; that is why he is there. I would expect that he has probably seen hundreds of cases where he doesn't understand the terminology - he cannot be expected to be an expert in every subject.
As a judge, he is there to apply his understanding of the law to the case; if he doesn't understand a term that is important to the case, he should be expected to admit it and to find out about it, but not to hand the case over (and cause it to be restarted) every time he hears something that he doesn't understand.
It's like me, a web developer, being asked to make a website about law. I don't understand law, I don't understand the terms, but I am an expert in making websites. I am there to apply my understanding of how to make a website; if I don't understand a legal term that is important to the website, I should be expected to admit it and find out about it, but not to resign every time I hear something that I don't understand.
Sure, this time it may be that he doesn't understand what a website or a forum is - if that was someone in the computing world then yes, they should step down. But this is the whole point of having professionals - acknowledge that there are people who understand more than you, and that you need to go and ask them for help so that you can do your job properly. A lot of people I know in the computing world could learn a valuable lesson from this judge.
Wow, that sounds an awful lot like the requirements the customer gave us for that big software project last week.
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I have to disagree here. Not on the lauding, but on that he should recuse himself. There are a couple of issues here; certainly in the UK judges are expected to know the law, but not for example the details of technology. The UK legal system provides the idea of expert witnesses, who are officers of the court (although paid for by one side). It is their role to explain issues that a judge or jury may not understand (I've done the role myself). Expecting judge or jury to be fonts of all knowledge, and know everything about the non-legal aspects of every case that comes before them is unrealistic. And how, without having things explain is a judge to learn? By requiring a judge to recuse him or herself every time they do not understand non-legal aspects of a case we'd end up with a judiciary that cannot sit simply because they are unable to gather knowledge in a legal setting./p?
You just described one of my friends. He's upset he didn't get into Stanford for law school and therefore can't study with Lessig.
All that stuff up there with the if/then/except/unless/provided is that you need a really BIG truth table or a well-nested set of if or switch statements and lots of continue & break.
look! it's a bird, it's a plane, it's....a girl? yes, a girl browsing Slashdot on Linux
Of course, in the old days there was GOTO as well. Of course no-one writes laws like that these days...
-1 not first post
Oh yeah? Prove it.
I don't think he should step down, either, but it does raise interesting questions about legal process in the UK: the government have argued that certain high-profile cases (typically involving complex fraud) should not be subject to jury trial "because the jurors wouldn't understand the complex issues at stake". If judges are equally deficient in understanding, then really - what's the point of removing an ancient right to trial by jury?
This is where the serious fun begins.
Yes , if the case was something highly technical and went into the intricacies of technology he could be forgiven. But a website is part of general culture in the UK now and I'm afraid if he doesn't know what it is then he's probably seriously out of touch with more than just the IT world. If there was some case about something illegal with cars we wouldn't expect him to know how the combustion cycle worked but we *would* expect him to know what a friggin car is else how the hell can he make any attempt at judging the case??
Certain people actively investigate new appliances, others are busy enough as is that they simply don't care. One of my grandma's has vowed never to touch a computer, even though the family is full of IT-nerds. My other grandma is IM'ing more than I am.
The best thing a judge can do in such a case is acknowledge he doesn't understand the topic, and preferably have a different judge that does know the topic take over, regardless of the topic.
This sig is intentionally left blank
he cannot be expected to be an expert in every subject
This is not about expertise. It's about basic literacy. This is an age where vast stores of knowledge are transferred over the internet, and an inability to use it is pretty close to an inability to read.
It means you can't get to the knowledge that most people can.
It means that you can't be as informed as those around you.
And if your job is to be generally knowledgeable about the world so that you can make wise decisions on any subject someone gives you with a bit of research, you're not in the right position.
If he was an expert in the law, but couldn't read, would that be okay? What about if he was an expert in the law but an idiot savant? Or an expert, but deaf, dumb, and blind? Or remembered everything about law, but otherwise couldn't remember anything longer than 10 minutes?
I refuse to believe that being a judge is all about knowing law. They need to have knowledge flowing into them like a river so that they can see the currents. Otherwise, they'll make myopic decisions.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
I see what you're saying, but the analogy would be better if someone were asking the judge to make a website. Technologies like HTML, ASP, PHP, Perl, mimetypes, CSS and so on are more than we should expect the average judge to understand in depth. However the very existence of the web and its basic concepts are at issue here.
Here's a more targeted tweaking of your analogy: You are asked to make a website about law, but you have no idea what a law is, nor what the term "regulation" is supposed to stand for, and you weren't aware that there are differences between local and national policy. You tell your potential client that you need to do some research first to understand what the site is supposed to be about, and are surprised when they stop returning your calls. If that sounds woefully ignorant, so should this judge.
Who need's speling and grammar?
That's not avoiding the issue at hand, that's validating the input.
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