Now You Too Can Hear The Old Justices Argue

Courts in the United States have been perhaps the biggest entity that has resisted the intrusion of technology into its proceedings.  Even in instances where the technology has been adopted, making the results of it widely available has not been a priority.  The U.S. Supreme Court is perhaps the best known example, where only in 2010 were recordings of oral arguments released in the same week as the session.  However, the Court had been recording arguments for decades, making them available long after the sessions that were recorded, and typically not for duplication.

NPR has reported (H/T Language Log/Twitter) that the archive, which dates back to 1955, has been digitized and made available at the Oyez Project (more recent recordings have been available via the Supreme Court website).  A cursory review indicates that recordings are not available for every case, something more clear the further back you go.  Presumably this is due at least in part to there not being recordings for all cases since 1955.  Oyez is looking to expand the availability of these recordings, and is working on smartphone application versions of the archive.