SCOTUS 2.0: A More Social Supreme Court?
BY Nancy Scola | Friday, May 1 2009
Forget all this talk this morning about the balance of the Supreme Court not shifting with the retirement announcement of David Souter. Change is indeed afoot.
How so? Well, for one thing, out goes Souter's fountain penned-opinions; Souter notoriously shied away from all things technological. And judging from the ages and experiences of the names being bandied about for Souter's replacement, in comes an emailing, Internet-using justice.
I make the point half in jest. But the context for it is that U.S. judicial branch comes in a distant third out of the three branches of government when it comes to embracing technology's potential. Both the White House/executive branch and Congress have far more fully integrated technology into how they go about fulfilling their missions. A changing of the guard -- along with the activism of tech-friendly justices present and past like John Roberts and Sandra Day O'Connor -- might be what sparks a modernization of the courts on the tech front. (Of course, there's a broader argument to be had about whether the courts should properly lag behind the rest of the country technologically, as part of its somewhat unique place as an institution apart from the rest of the political system and outside world. Then again, that argument is a bit of a tougher sell in the post-Bush v. Gore America.)
At the very least, maybe the new justice can help do something about SupremeCourtUS.gov, the seriously less than welcoming online home of the high court. (Plan your visit to the court, with this handy PDF!) Many high schools have more attractive and functional sites, which isn't really befitting an institution of the Supreme Court's stature.
One most likely meaningless but nonetheless fun social media indicator of how separated from Internet culture the Supreme Court is: how often photographs of the justices turn up in Flickr. Let's use, say, Rahm Emanuel as our baseline for level of Flickr exposure. The White House Chief of Staff pops up in 337 shots shared on the site. Even the most popular justice on Flickr, Chief Justice John Roberts, shows up in just 143 photos (filtered with the keyword "justice," as his is a common name). It goes down from there: Clarence Thomas, 119; Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 73; Antonin Scalia, 69; John Paul Stevens, 40; Samuel Alito, 36; Souter: 23.
And Anthony Kennedy (also filtered with "justice") turns up in just 21 items on Flickr -- one photograph for every year he's spent on the Supreme Court.
(Photo by White House photographer Pete Souza)