SCOTUS Justice Impressed By Twitter
Supreme Court justices aren't likely to begin tweeting any time soon, but Associate Justice Stephen Breyer thinks the 140-character news dispatches have already changed the world.
Testifying before a House Judiciary subcommittee on Thursday, Breyer said he had his first run-in with Twitter following the disputed elections in Iran, when protestors took to the internet to organize gatherings and to share information and photos.
"Remember when they had that disturbance in Iran? My son said, 'Go look at this.' And oh my goodness. There were some twitterers, as they call them, there were people there with photographs as it went on, and I sat there for 2 hours, absolutely hypnotized," Breyer said. "And I thought, My goodness, this is now, for better or for worse, I think maybe in many respects for better, in that instance, certainly, it's not the same world. It's instant, and people react instantly."
During the course of the hearing, where Breyer and Justice Antonin Scalia talked about a support network for the federal judiciary, Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN), the chairman of the subcommittee, asked whether the high court would consider using Twitter.
"I don't even know what it is. I've heard it talked about, but you know, my wife calls me Mr. Clueless," Scalia said. "Tweeting," Scalia snorted.
But don't expect @AntoninScalia or @StephenBreyer to crop up as official accounts any time soon. The Supreme Court has been reluctant to take the rudimentary step of broadcasting oral arguments, an issue that has become a point of contention between the Legislative and Judicial branches. That hesitation leaves in doubt whether #StareDecisis will ever become a popular Twitter hashtag.
Still, predicted Breyer: "It's not something that's going to go away."
See the full exchange, courtesy of C-SPAN, after the jump.
I'm so tired of people in power being clueless about technological elements of our society... especially ones that are pervasive tools of social and political interaction.
It's even worse than grandpa snorting about "horseless carriages" - the thought that those making/interpreting the law are as educated and open-minded as those who condemned Galileo makes me shudder.
Does Scalia know about the Google?
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