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Comment by gregd | Hacker News Reader

There is a huge disconnect between the "justice" system and technology which needs to end. You've seen it before if you're in IT, that glazed eyes look when explaining why their Word document is missing…

Anyone with judicial experience know if judges have trusted advisory panels that can help wrap their heads around technology to better rule on cases such as this?

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You mean like Judge Alsup, who taught himself Java so that he could rule that Oracle's APIs are not copyrightable? Or Judge Wells, who ordered SCO to show him the code and then threw the case out when the failed to do so? We haven't done so bad on tech judges recently - it seems to me that the problem with the lavabit/NSA cases is not so much the technical side, but the classic one of government powers, and the fact that there is no explicit constitutional protections of privacy.

Why would technology be any different from anything else? The prosecution and defense are free to call on expert witnesses to explain SSL and heart surgery to the judge and jury.

It is up to the participants to bring in experts to make sure the judge has enough relevant information to make an informed decision. Really, even in this case, it does not seem like the judge is doing that badly on grokking the technology.

I think it's actually the other way around, where Lavabit doesn't understand the judicial system and the concept of evidentiary chain of custody.

Do you really think IT is that much harder than say medicine or the nuances of structural engineering on any of the myriad of other technical areas that no doubt show up in courtrooms every single day?

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