Posted on 01/22/2020 5:45:42 AM PST by a little elbow grease
Electronics are banned from Trump's impeachment hearing.
Some senators reportedly flouted this rule, and wore (Apple) smart watches to the proceedings.
According to decorum guidelines given to senators before the trial began, electronics are not allowed in the room at all. The rules read "No use of phones or electronic devices will be allowed in the Chamber. All electronics should be left in the Cloakroom in the storage provided." The rules prohibit tools that senators would typically use to connect with the outside world and share information on social media, although it seems likely that Trump himself will be on Twitter.
Sen. John Cornyn, one of the senators who reportedly wore an Apple Watch during the trial, told The Hill last week "We will not have our electronic devices. I just saw a piece of cabinetry in the cloakroom where we will be required to turn over our iPads and our iPhones."
Along with Cornyn, Roll Call reported that Sens. Mike Lee, John Thune, Jerry Moran, John Barrasso, Tim Scott, Michael Bennet, and Patty Murray were reportedly spotted with smart watches.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Did they have aides banging on garbage cans to tip them to what the next question was going to be?
Yes, you can. . . and receive news articles from various Internet news sources of your choice. You can also initiate and receive calls and texts, or listen to music or audio books.
____________
Yep.
Speaking of silly rules .... from a while back at Auguta:
NO BACKWARD HATS
-- "While giving an interview in the media center Ricky Fowler was kindly asked by a Masters official to turn his baseball cap forward to the proper alignment.
So rude!"
******
Newer Apple Watches series 5 can be cellular and independent of being tethered to an iPhone and have their own connection to a carrier.
AppleWatch Series 5: Lets you go without your phone.
With cellular you can call from the trail, text from the surf, or stream music from the slopes. All with just your watch. —Apple.com
Not if you’ve got one of the newer ones with a cellular connectivity.
Patty Murray knows how to operate an Apple Watch?
You go girl...
Absolutely true.
You can dictate what you want to text. . . and the voice to text is superb. You can also record your reply and send that.
After Dick Tracy jumped the shark and had personal flying devices and other stuff from science fiction, the wrist radio had two-way video which the Apple Watch doesn’t have. It got ridiculous and unreadable as a comic strip.
Just to clarify for the uninitiated...
The newest Apple Watches CAN have independent cellular capability. That is an option. You can purchase them with or without cellular capability.
It is pretty obvious when you are interacting with your Apple Watch. Yes, you can send and receive texts, but that would require either tapping on your watch, writing with your finger on the face of your watch, or speaking to your watch - all of which would be noticed.
As for listening to your watch, that pretty much requires Bluetooth headphones or earbuds. Again, it would be noticed.
While I understand and agree with the banning of electrical devices, including Apple Watches, doing something distracting with them would be obvious. I do think that someone wearing an Apple Watch (or other smart watch) could receive text messages, which would be against the rules and possibly harmful to the proceedings. They should make sure NO Senator has ANY electronic devices.
Why of course we wouldn’t. Speak your reply to me clearly and please point your voice toward my left wrist. . .
As an aside, did only 7 Senators wear Apple Watches, and five just happened to be Republicans, or was this a case of selective reporting?
Uh, no, they can’t. The data on an Apple Watch is encrypted to 256bit AES standard, just like that on an Apple iPhone. Unless you have the Watch’s passcode which is used to link it to the iPhone, or unlock it, you ain’t getting the data.
Not really. It’s about distraction from the trial. It grew out of a rule that was established back in the 1800s from earlier impeachment trials where Senators were not permitted to bring other papers or reading materials during hearings or the trial in chief. The Senators were required to pay attention to every detail. Electronic devices were deemed to provide too much temptation to distract from the content of what is being said.
Isn’t the Apple watch basically useless without the iPhone though?
Very good explanation, Crush. . . And I agree completely. If you are going to have such a rule, enforce it. I wear an Apple Watch, but I also have a purely mechanical watch for special occasions. There’s no reason that Senators cannot do the same, exchange their smart watches for a merely prosaic timepiece. There is also the purely technical solution of cellular suppressors which could be deployed for the entire chamber, but that would be crippling to staff.
War games: McCain caught playing poker on iPhone during Syria debate
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/04/john-mccain-poker-iphone-syria-debate
Not true. You can text and email and make phone calls. An Apple Watch is a serious computer.
Sandy Berger would have wanted one of those.
Thanks for that info, now I may get one.
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