Having just heard the news that Torrentspy lost their court case while defending themselves against an RIAA law suit, a comment made by Andrew Norton (Spokesperson for the US Pirate Party) caught my attention.

When asked to comment on the decision, Norton said:

"This case shows again the need for radical reform in the US legal system, as well as educating our judges to deal with modern technology. This is not the 1970s, where the basic underpinnings and mechanics of technologies were readily understandable by the layman, but require significant knowledge in the technologies involved. Perhaps it is time we had specific courts with jurists who are kept up to date on technological progress, so that justice can be sought, rather than judgements based on which side has the most lyrical attorney."

The idea of specific courts is not only reasonable, but also necessary during times like these. A judge and the average jury member on today's court cases can not be expected to understand the complexities of modern technologies, specifically Internet related matters. We already have lawyers who practice specific areas, such as criminal defence and copyright law for example. So the idea of a genre specific deciding collective is not that far fetched.

The recent case of Julie Amero comes to mind in this regard. Amero, a school teacher, noticed that pornographic pop-ups started appearing on the class computer screen. Not knowing what to do, she covered the screen with a jumper but not before several of the children had been exposed.

"A technically minded expert Judge fully up to speed on related technologies would have thrown the case out of court right from the start"

Every person who knows Internet and related technologies knows Amero was wrongly accused. During the trial, an 'expert' witness falsely stated that because the computer browser (an old version of Internet Exploiter Explorer in this case) showed links to the pornographic sites in the History, that was conclusive proof that Amero had deliberately visited the sites. This might seem feasible to average Joe Surfer, but people like you and I know that your browser history logs every web page, even pop-ups caused by spyware and alike, whether you have deliberately visited them or not. It should also be noted that the school computers in question were not behind a firewall and had anti virus software with a long expired licence.

Amero is still yet to face a new trial and is looking at 40 years in prison if convicted. A technically minded expert Judge fully up to speed on related technologies would have thrown the case out of court right from the start. But instead we are seeing a waste of everyone's time and money to pursue what is essentially a case based on severe technological ignorance.

I think this is long overdue. When we have Judges daft enough to claim that RAM is a document and should be turned to the court clerk to examine it's contents, it really is time for a change.

The right people for the right job. And let me hereby cast my vote for a panel of judges consisting of Tim Burners Lee, John Carmack and Kevin Rose.