Switched has a new home! Huffpost Tech.

Click here to visit the new home of Switched!

Hot on HuffPost Tech:

See More Stories
AOL Tech

Supreme Court Justices Aren't Big Texters

by Amar Toor on April 22, 2010 at 10:05 AM

The position of Supreme Court justice might be the most secure, cushy job in the country, but it's certainly not as easy as it looks. Keeping your finger on the pulse of society long enough to fairly interpret the laws governing it definitely requires some leg work. And, as we found out yesterday, the job is sometimes so difficult that obscure social phenomena can manage to completely elude the court's cultural radar -- including this crazy little thing called text messaging.

Yesterday, the court began presiding over the case of Ontario v. Quon, which, as we reported earlier, involves a police chief who'd been reading sexually explicit texts sent by his sergeants. The justices seated on the court clearly know their way around a constitutional law book, and are no strangers to issues pertaining to employee rights. But, as DCDicta reports, they probably wouldn't know a text message (or even a sext message) if it hit them with a gavel to the face. Chief Justice John Roberts (Harvard Law, '79), at one point, asked for clarification on the finer differences "between e-mail and a pager." (?) Antonin Scalia (Harvard Law, '60) couldn't seem to wrap his head around the idea of a service provider, asking, "You mean (the text) doesn't go right to me?" Justice Anthony Kennedy (Harvard Law, '61) followed that up by asking what would happen if someone were to send a text to an officer at the same time he or she was sending a separate text to someone else. "Does it say: 'Your call is important to us, and we will get back to you?'" (OK, that one's kinda cute.)

Look, we understand that there's a generational dynamic at work here, and we're fully aware that the nine justices seated on the Supreme Court comprise some of the most intelligent, circumspect people in the entire country. And we're also confident that the judges will be able to get up to SMS speed before their anticipated ruling this summer. But isn't it somewhat worrisome that arguably the most important people in America are making major decisions about something so embarrassingly foreign to them? We're not saying we'd like to see a Supreme Court full of Mark Zuckerbergs, but perhaps Roberts & Co. might want to consider handing this one off to a group of slightly younger Harvard Law grads -- ones that actually use cell phones. [From: DCDicta, via: BoingBoing]

Tags: government, law, ontario v. quon, OntarioV.Quon, sexting, sms, supreme court, SupremeCourt, technology, Texting, top

HuffPost AOL Social News Most Popular