Spare Change

When countries engage in cyberwarfare, as Russia is accused of doing against Estonia, and terrorists are on trial for using the internet to incite holy wars, can we afford to have judges who are not technoliterate?

From yesterday's story:

A judge admitted on Wednesday he was struggling to cope with basic terms like "Web site" in the trial of three men accused of inciting terrorism via the Internet.

Judge Peter Openshaw broke into the questioning of a witness about a Web forum used by alleged Islamist radicals.

"The trouble is I don't understand the language. I don't really understand what a Web site is," he told a London court during the trial of three men charged under anti-terrorism laws.

Prosecutor Mark Ellison briefly set aside his questioning to explain the terms "Web site" and "forum". An exchange followed in which the 59-year-old judge acknowledged: "I haven't quite grasped the concepts."

It's not rocket science, people. Do we need a technoliteracy campaign to educate government officials who don't even know that the internet is a series of tubes?

Photo uploaded by Lady, That's My Skull