[blindlaw] Format Question

Thu Dec 11 20:21:14 UTC 2008

Maybe someone is closer to the case than am I, but my understanding was
that the ACB and others are concerned with paper notices an dnot with
web access.  One can imagine a day when we can access social security
notices from our personal accounts on the web but so far the agency has
not moved to that sort of aproach.
Jim McCarthy 

-----Original Message-----
From: blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org]
On Behalf Of b75205 at gmail.com
Sent: Tuesday, December 09, 2008 12:26 PM
To: Dennis Clark; blindlaw at nfbnet.org
Subject: Re: [blindlaw] Format Question

Dennis:

The ACB lawsuit is against Social Security and they are the ones doing
the "hand holding" as they are concentrating on making everything turned
into text but unformatted text or text made from PDF files is usually a
mess, especially if it was created using a mac in InDesign and
translated into a PDF file on a Windows based computer and then turned
into a text file. You see this stuff all the time, and it looks like
people just do not care but in reality they did not consider the
transition from one format to the other.

The NFB lawsuit is great, it finally breaches the gap from the public to
the private sector. I tried to do this with the National Voter
Registration form by showing that if the states were willing to deny the
right to vote to people because they made their voter registration forms
incaccessible then we could use the laws of the Voting Rights Act to
force Integration under the Civil rights Act of 1964 which enables the
14th Amendment Section
2 to be imposed upon the states if they do not comply, and this would to
everyone in the state, not just the public sector.

Social Security was required to be accessible to the blind 35 years ago
under the Rehabiliation Act of 1973. There is no excuse. They were
required to do this in 1998 under Section 508 of the Rehabiliation Act
and here is the law.
http://www.section508.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Content&ID=3
What we need here is a review of accessibility law and make sure
everyone understands that the federal government mandated accessibility
years ago and nobody has complied.

And they have not complied because IT people refuse to do it. It is that
simple. Managers have been told that it is too expensive or that it is
impossible. That's Bull. It can be done and it can be done when people
make the documents, and the only thing preventing accessibility is the
knowledge of how to do it and the pride of IT officials who do not know
how to do it and refuse to budge and learn.

The Target lawsuit is so out of whack I cannot beleive it. The problem
with Target is that they probably are using an old database and so they
would have to get a new one. Chances are they have not updated their
software.  
That could be rather expensive but they will have to do it anyway, just
for security issues alone. Target has always had a corporate mentality
of being able to do anything they want and so when the federal
government mandates things to them, they tend to consider it a nuisance
and so they are not handling this well at all. You would think that
given they just lost the case they would have fixed their site by now,
but they haven't. And what is amazing is that it is so easy to do this.
Accessibility is easy to those who know how to do it. This is what
accessibility gets down to is using new software and having the right
people who know how to write code properly create the websites with the
idea that accessibility is the prime issue.

Many people in IT think that if you make a website standards compliant
that that makes it accessible, but you have to put accessibility
features into the site.
Of coure Targets site is not web standards compliant. No, Target needs
to fire its IT People and hire people who will keep them out of
lawsuits. The costs of the lawyers and the settlement could have been
put into updating their database and hiring people to fix their site.
Also if they fix their site they would be able to use it on Cell phones
and Iphones. The transition to Web 2 is almost the same requirements to
start a website to accessibility, so Target is still in the dark ages of
web design.

This is such a waste.

The reality of Accessibility is that it shows that IT people have no
clue what they are doing and they are getting caught. They are getting
caught being unprofessional, they are getting caught writing code that
is written badly, they are illiterate when it comes to writing computer
code.

They are leaving their corporations out to dry.

James Pepper
On Dec 9, 2008 9:25am, Dennis Clark <dennisgclark at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> Hi John,
>
>
> Good to see you on the list. I lost track of you after law school, and

> I
am happy to see that the bar exam is behind you and that you are now in
practice. In your message you referred to another "ACB, let's all hold
blind folks hands, as they cannot help themselves lawsuit." I assume you
are referring to the law suit against Target and that was actually
launched with the support of the NFB and litigated by the Disability
Rights Advocates in California. I am personally pleased that the NFB did
this, but I will admit I am aggressive on this point, and I have no
problem forcing even private entities such as Target to be fully
accessible to the blind.  
The Target action can of course be argued as "hand holding," since there
are alternatives for reading any website, such as using a reader, or the
free market solution of simply shopping at a store which demonstrates
that it wants the business of blind people by offering an accessible
website, but I don't subscribe to that argument. After all, everything
is accessible if we use sighted assistance, but the accessibility
alternative needs to be practical, not just plausible.
>
>
>
>
>
> Forcing the Social Security Administration to provide accessible
communications is an even easier philosophical question for me, because
unlike Target, the government is not a private entity. There are many
shopping alternatives available to us other than Target, but we are
forced to interact with the Social Security Administration.
>
>
>
>
>
> Also, the Social Security Administration use to telephone blind
recipients to tell them about any problems or written communications
being mailed to them, so we are not asking them to do something new or
unworkable. I know for a fact that this was true in 2004, because I
represented someone before the Social Security Administration, and this
procedure was already in place and was offered as part of the solution
to my client's problem.
>
>
>
>
>
> As a matter of law, and in addition to the 504 argument, I think a 
> strong
constitutional argument can be made as a matter of due process if it is
the case that there is a property interest in Social Security payments.
It is likely that there is no property interest in SSI payments, but I
am confident there is with SSDI and retirement payments since they
result from money paid into Social Security by the recipient.
>
>
>
>
>
> I look forward to hearing others thoughts on this matter.
>
>
>
>
>
> All the best,
>
>
>
>
>
> Dennis
>
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: ckrugman at sbcglobal.net>
>
>
> To: "NFBnet Blind Law Mailing List" blindlaw at nfbnet.org>
>
>
> Sent: Monday, December 08, 2008 2:22 PM
>
>
> Subject: Re: [blindlaw] Format Question
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> I actually agree with you. I am more concerned about the lack of 
> activity
regarding inaccessible web sites and the use of sucdh formats such as
captia and flash formats where image text is presented not bering
readable by screen readers.
>
>
> Chuck
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "John " joramsey at cox.net>
>
>
> To: "'NFBnet Blind Law Mailing List'" blindlaw at nfbnet.org>
>
>
> Sent: Monday, December 08, 2008 2:09 AM
>
>
> Subject: Re: [blindlaw] Format Question
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Hi Chuck,
>
>
> I have no dispute that we should be able to receive communications in 
> an
>
>
> accessible format, but I am just not ready for another ACB, let's all 
> hold
>
>
> blind folks hands, as they cannot help themselves lawsuit.
>
>
> Take care,
>
>
> John
>
>
>
>
>
> John A. Ramsey Jr., Esq.
>
>
>
>
>
> Gainesville, FL 32609
>
>
>
>
>
> Phone: (352) 505-6642
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
>
>
> From: blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org]

> On
>
>
> Behalf Of ckrugman at sbcglobal.net
>
>
> Sent: Monday, December 08, 2008 2:41 AM
>
>
> To: NFBnet Blind Law Mailing List
>
>
> Subject: Re: [blindlaw] Format Question
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Its interesting because I recall many years ago that SSA used to say 
> that
>
>
> materials were available in Braille and people could receive
communications
>
>
> from them in Braille. This was back in the 60's when I was growing up.
I'm
>
>
> not sure what the extent of this was or if or when it was
discontinued.
>
>
> Chuck
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kathleen Hagen" khagen12 at q.com>
>
>
> To: "NFBnet Blind Law Mailing List" blindlaw at nfbnet.org>
>
>
> Sent: Sunday, December 07, 2008 1:24 PM
>
>
> Subject: Re: [blindlaw] Format Question
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> John, There is a certified class for blind social security recipients
>
>
> in
>
>
> which they are suing the SSA for accessible documents. That does not
mean
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> that SSA is providing alternative formats for consumer's materials
yet.
>
>
> And they probably won't for some time while they spend the taxpayers'
>
>
> money figuring out how to avoid it. They do hire blind people and they
>
>
> provide general materials in braille at least. But your friend
shouldn't
>
>
> expect to see her consumer-related material in alternative format any
time
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> soon.
>
>
> Kathy Hagen
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "John " joramsey at cox.net>
>
>
> To: "'NFBnet Blind Law Mailing List'" blindlaw at nfbnet.org>
>
>
> Sent: Sunday, December 07, 2008 11:09 AM
>
>
> Subject: [blindlaw] Format Question
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Hello All,
>
>
> i am on another NFB list and an individual seems to be under the
>
>
> impression
>
>
> that the Social Security Administration is violating her rights
because
>
>
> she
>
>
> received the cost of living increase letter in the same format that
>
>
> everyone
>
>
> else receives the notice. Apparently this is just a standard letter in
a
>
>
> standard envelope. I am personally not aware of any law that requires
an
>
>
> entity to send "accessible" letters to everyone that might have a
visual
>
>
> disability. If this is the law, can someone point me to the section of
>
>
> the
>
>
> CFR that contains such a requirement?
>
>
> Cordially,
>
>
> John
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> John A. Ramsey Jr., Esq.
>
>
>
>
>
> Gainesville, FL 32609
>
>
>
>
>
> Phone: (352) 505-6642
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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