Smartphones could offer journalists and the public an easy and cost-effective method to provide online updates of court proceedings — which is why it’s always been frustrating that many federal jurisdictions don’t allow the devices into courthouses. Now, thanks to a newly issued document, we know why.

Terrorism.

An 8-page memo issued last week by the Administrative Office of the Courts describes the primary reason to ban smartphones from court buildings. “These common devices present security issues because some can be and have been converted for use as weapons, including explosives.”

“The current array of devices has raised additional concerns about risks due to increased use of non-metallic materials in manufacturing, smaller size, and the potential inability of scanning equipment to detect these devices and hidden explosives,” the memo continues.

The memo is a policy paper of sorts to federal judges on how they should deal with the smartphone’s ubiquity.

Reasons above and beyond terrorism to restrict the devices from courthouses include the secret filming, recording or transmitting of court proceedings; the disruption of court proceedings; and that deliberating jurors might access the internet and research the case, the report said.

Considerations in favor of allowing the mobile phones in the courthouse are, in part, that they are essential to the practice of law, and they could allow the press to transmit the news if approved by the sitting judge, according to the paper.

The paper highlights dramatically different smartphone policies in courthouses across the country, but does not list them by name.

But our own anecdotal evidence supports that conclusion.

At the District of Columbia federal courthouse, which is home to the lower courts and the U.S. Court of Appeals, I had to check my cellphone at the door two weeks ago. And in the Los Angeles federal courthouse, I was ordered by a judge to turn off the Wi-Fi signal emitted from my HTC Evo in December.

But in San Francisco, the judiciary allows Wi-Fi connected computing inside its courtrooms, from either a cellphone or a computer. Live blogging or tweeting is commonplace there.

That is the status quo with the ongoing Barry Bonds criminal trial in San Francisco. What’s more, the San Francisco federal courthouse even provides free Wi-Fi in many courtrooms.

Still, the law prohibits taking photographs in federal trial courts or streaming live hearings.

Even with the advance of the mobile device, it doesn’t look like courtroom stills or streams will be allowed anytime soon despite our always-on society. That’s because many courts don’t even allow any internet use inside a courtroom.

The reason surrounds defining the term “broadcasting,” which is not allowed according to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 53.

“The contemporaneous transmission of electronic messages from the courtroom describing trial proceedings, and the dissemination of those messages in a manner such that they are widely and instantaneously accessible to the general public,falls within the definition of ‘broadcasting,’ “a Georgia judge wrote in 2009, when denying a reporter’s request to tweet from the courtroom.

Chief Judge Alex Kozinski of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals based in San Francisco said federal rules against “broadcasting” in courtrooms is a disservice.

The circuit court, based in San Francisco, often allows for television broadcasting of its oral arguments. The federal appellate courts set their own rules, but Congress generally sets photo rules for the lower federal trial courts.

And almost every state allows pictures in the courtroom, at the discretion of the trial judge. Internet use from the gallery in state courts is also at the judge’s discretion.

“Increased public scrutiny, in turn, may ultimately improve the trial process,” Kozinski wrote in a Fordham University law review article last year. “Judges may avoid falling asleep on the bench or take more care explaining their decisions and avoiding arbitrary rulings or excessively lax courtroom management.”

But thanks to Osama Bin Laden, or at least the fear of him and his cohorts, tweeting from the courtroom is largely considered an act of terrorism.

(Source: Wired.com)