John Oliver Has The Solution To The Supreme Courts Refusal To Videotape Supreme Court Hearings: Dogs (Culture) by Mike Masnick from the not-cats? dept on Tuesday, October 21st, 2014 For many years, weve discussed the pure ridiculousness of the Supreme courts adamant refusal to allow cameras in the courtroom, along with the Justices questionable justifications of the ban. Now it appears that John Oliver has taken up the issue as well, but unlike those just whining about it, Oliver (thanks to the resources of HBO) has a possible solution. Dogs. Oliver starts out mocking Justice Antonin Scalias reason for barring cameras: that people would just see 15- or 30-second clips from the arguments, taking things out of context. Of course, as Oliver points out, that makes absolutely no sense, since the Supreme Court already releases audio of the hearings, and thus we already do hear the same clips -- its just that theyre generally paired with artistic renderings of the Justices instead of the actual video. His solution -- using an almost immoral amount of resources -- is to present video representations of the entire Supreme Court... using dogs (and a couple of birds in supporting roles). And, Oliver claims, theyre making those videos freely available to any other news provider who would like to create complete reenactments of any court case in a way that is cute and guaranteed to draw more attention than the court renderings, or, hell, actual videos if they were ever allowed. You can see the full ten minutes of footage (and, yes, I watched it all) right here. That video also, helpfully, links to the Supreme Courts oral arguments audio page for people to download. youtu.be/tug71xZL7yc
Posted on: Wed, 22 Oct 2014 18:03:06 +0000