[nfbwatlk] Is it illegal to not open your eyes while on agovernment-issued ID picture or passport?

[Mike Freeman]

I suspect insisting upon iris or retinal scans without provision for at
least one other biometric and one nonbiometric alternative would be a
violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. I've worried about this
since the mid-1990's. To my knowledge, however, there isn't much case law on
this. It would be interesting to do some legal research to see, say, if
there have been cases where prisoners with no hands were discriminated
against because of the inability to take fingerprints.

In any event, barring some legal nicety of which I am unaware, if you,
Humberto, or anyone else, was unable to get a state ID card due to inability
to open eyes, we'd have a go through either Federal Court or, more probably,
both an ADA complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice and a civil rights
complaint with HHS and perhaps a state human rights complaint also and I'm
certain we'd have things straightened out in short order. A word to Patty
Murray's office might do the trick also.

But let's not assume there'd be a problem until it happens.

Mike Freeman


-----Original Message-----
From: nfbwatlk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nfbwatlk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of debby phillips
Sent: Friday, August 31, 2012 9:50 PM
To: NFB of Washington Talk Mailing List; nfb-talk at nfbnet.org;
blindTlk at nfbnet.org
Subject: Re: [nfbwatlk] Is it illegal to not open your eyes while on
agovernment-issued ID picture or passport?

Well, okay, here's my take on this.  Before I had my prosthetic eyes, my
real ones had muscle atrophy, because of scar tissue and of course, lack of
use.  So perhaps that is what you are experiencing?  I don't know for sure.
Just guessing.  As for the legality, I think that would be a hard one to
enforce.  But I'm not an attorney and am not familiar with state law.  I
know that there has been some talk about people being identified with iris
scans.  Certainly there would have to be exceptions for that, 
too.    Peace,    Debby

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