October 1, 2003 (Vol 3, Issue, 12)

In This Issue:

UPCOMING EVENTS

1. Homeland Security 2003

FCC TELECOMMUNICATIONS/REGULATIONS

1. FCC Do-Not-Call Rules Remain in Force
2. CapTel Declaratory Ruling

ARTICLES/ANNOUNCEMENTS

1. Section 508 Compliance of the Executive Branches
2. Foreign Policy and Disability: Legislative Strategies and Civil Rights Protections to Ensure Inclusion of People with Disabilities
3. Two Brown University E-Gov Studies Released
• State and Federal E-Government in the United States, 2003
• U.S. Urban E-Government, 2003
4. Avis Access for Travelers with Disabilities
5. NeoSpeech VoiceText
6. DAMAX Directional Antenna Equipped Handsets Score Highest Hearing Aid Compatible Ratings

PAST EVENTS

1. 2003 Accessibility Forum
2. Webcast: Assistive Technology for Persons with Disabilities

RESOURCES

1. DOJ's New Guidance on Government Website Accessibility
2. Federal Statutory Definitions of Disability
3. Federal Agency Public URL's on Section 508 Guidance
4. HAVA Technical Assistance
5. HAVA State Implementation Plans

 

UPCOMING EVENTS

1. HOMELAND SECURITY 2003

The 5th in a series of E-Gov Homeland Security Conferences, "Homeland Security 2003: Two Years of Progress - What's Better and What Needs Work" will take place at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, D.C on December 2-3, 2003. The conference will cover current organizations' policies, strategies and tools being employed to improve national homeland security. Experts from government and industry will discuss their program objectives, progress to date, and technology sought to meet future requirements. In addition to domestic programs, the agenda will include discussion of international efforts to fight terrorism beyond U.S. borders.

For more information including registration, access: http://www.e-gov.com/ and click on the link to "Homeland Security."

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FCC TELECOMMUNICATIONS/REGULATIONS

1. FCC DO-NOT-CALL RULES REMAIN IN FORCE

On September 29th, the FCC announced that it will enforce its Do-Not-Call rules against telemarketers that have obtained the Do-Not-Call list from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), beginning Wednesday, October 1, 2003. This statement is in response to recent rulings by federal judges that have cast the enforcement of the list into question. On September 24, 2003, U.S. District Judge Lee West ruled that the FTC lacked specific authority from Congress to run the Do-Not-Call list. Then on September 25th, federal Judge Edward Nottingham ruled that the list violated free speech rights of telemarketers because of exemptions in the coverage of the list. On Friday, September 26th, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals refused to block the rules pending review-as the telemarketing industry had urged-citing the strong public interest of leaving the rules in place. Congress quickly passed a bipartisan bill clarifying that authority, and President Bush signed the legislation on Monday, September 29th. The FCC then made its announcement. The FCC rules complement and expand on those of the FTC. FCC rules have not been disturbed by recent court cases. The Commission intends to continue to administer and enforce its rules to the fullest extent possible as the litigation proceeds.

For more information, access: http://www.fcc.gov/.

2. CAPTEL DECLARATORY RULING

The Declaratory Ruling by the Commission on Ultratec's Petition for Clarification Provision of Cost Recovery for CapTel, an Enhanced VCO Service filed April 12, 2002 was published in the Federal Register on September 29, 2003.

This document clarifies that captioned telephone voice carry over (VCO) service is a type of telecommunications relay service (TRS), and that eligible providers of such service are eligible to recover their costs in accordance with section 225 of the Communications Act. This document also clarifies that certain TRS mandatory minimum standards do not apply to captioned telephone VCO service, and waives other TRS mandatory standards for captioned telephone VCO service, for all current and future captioned telephone VCO service providers, for the same period of time indicated herein, beginning on the date of release of this Declaratory Ruling.

This Declaratory Ruling can be found in its entirety on the FCC's Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau's website at www.fcc.gov/cgb/dro/trs.html.

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ARTICLES/PUBLICATIONS

1. SECTION 508 COMPLIANCE OF THE EXECUTIVE BRANCHES

According to an article in the 8/25/03 edition of Government Computer News entitled "Administration will review Section 508 compliance", "the executive branches will soon undergo a mandatory survey of their IT accessibility to 54 disabled Americans."

Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1998 requires the Department of Justice (DOJ) to biannually lead agencies through a self-evaluation process to determine the federal government's progress towards compliance with the law. The article reports that DOJ's Civil Rights Division will be in charge of the survey, which will be administered by the General Services Administration (GSA).

To read the full article in Government Computer News, access: http://www.gcn.com/22_24/tech-report/23226-1.html.

2. FOREIGN POLICY AND DISABILITY: LEGISLATIVE STRATEGIES AND CIVIL RIGHTS PROTECTIONS TO ENSURE INCLUSION OF PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

On September 9th, the National Council on Disability (NCD) released its report, "Foreign Policy and Disability: Legislative Strategies and Civil Rights Protections to Ensure Inclusion of People with Disabilities", concluding that the inclusion of people with disabilities in U.S. foreign policy will be achieved only when specific legislation is enacted.

The report examines legislative changes that will ensure the inclusion of people with disabilities in all foreign assistance programs under the direction of the U.S. Department of State and the United States Agency for International Development. It is a follow-up to NCD's 1996 Foreign Policy and Disability (http://www.ncd.gov/newsroom/publications/foreign.html) report that found continued barriers to access for people with disabilities in U.S. foreign assistance programs.

This report reviews a number of models that Congress has adopted for linking human rights and foreign policy that can be adapted to ensure the inclusion of people with disabilities. This report looks primarily at the U.S. Department of State and USAID. Among the various strategies and approaches to improve foreign assistance policies and practices, NCD recommends that:

• Congress amend the Foreign Assistance Act to ensure inclusion of people with disabilities in all U.S. programs by requiring every U.S. agency operating abroad to operate in a manner that is accessible and inclusive of people with disabilities. NCD recommends that this be accomplished by, among other reforms, amending the Foreign Assistance Act to create a Disability Advisor at the State Department and creating an office on Disability and Development at USAID.
• Require documentation of disability rights violations in State Department Country Reports.
• Request that the General Accounting Office document access for people with disabilities in government-funded programs.
• Support the drafting of a United Nations convention on the rights of people with disabilities; and
• U.S. agencies operating abroad should establish guidelines for the implementation of the Rehabilitation Act in their programs abroad.

3. TWO BROWN UNIVERSITY E-GOV STUDIES RELEASED


In September, Brown University released its annual E-Gov studies on State and Federal and Urban websites in the United States. To test the accessibility of the websites in each of these studies, researchers used two different standards of disability accessibility: compliance with the Priority Level One standard recommended by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and compliance with the legal requirements of Section 508 of the U.S. Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Sites were judged to be either in compliance or not in compliance based on the online "Bobby" test that evaluates disability accessibility.

a.
STATE AND FEDERAL E-GOVERNMENT IN THE UNITED STATES, 2003

The fourth annual e-government study conducted at Brown University finds that most state and federal government websites are written at too high a grade level for average American users. In addition, only about one-third of sites examined satisfied recognized standards for accessibility by users with vision or hearing impairment. This year's study rated 1,603 state sites and 60 major federal sites in terms of online service delivery, privacy, security, and accessibility, among other things.

b.
U.S. URBAN E-GOVERNMENT, 2003

Most government websites maintained by America's 70 largest cities fail to meet basic disability access standards for the visually and hearing-impaired, according to a new urban e-government study by researchers at Brown University. This year's study analyzed 1,933 sites maintained by city governments. The researchers examined an average of 27.6 websites in each city, including homepages for the Mayor, City Council and major departments and agencies.

To view copies of the press release and full report for both studies, access: www.InsidePolitics.org.

4. AVIS ACCESS FOR TRAVELERS WITH DISABILITIES

On September 18th, Avis Rent A Car, Inc. announced the nation's first comprehensive accessibility program for travelers with disabilities. Dubbed "Avis Access," the initiative was unfurled at the annual World Congress on Disabilities in Orlando, FL.

Specifically, Avis Access is providing a dedicated 24-hour toll-free number, 1-888 TRY-HARDER (879-4273) for customers with special travel needs, along with TTY/TDD access for those with a hearing impairment. Other specific service offerings for drivers and passengers with disabilities include the following complimentary service options:

• Transfer Board: Eases the driver or passenger from their wheelchairs into the car seat.
• Swivel Seat: Allows the driver or passenger to turn their bodies in the car seat with limited effort. The seat can easily be removed from underneath the person.
• Spinner Knob: Enables a full turning radius of the steering wheel while using only one hand.
• Panoramic Mirror: Provides a much larger field of view for any driver, and is a legal requirement for hearing-impaired drivers.
• Hand Controls: Lets drivers with limited leg function accelerate or brake using a hand controlled device. Controls do not interfere with drivers who are not physically challenged.
• Accessible Bus Service: Offers an electrically operated ramp or lift, two ADA compliant wheelchair positions, special aisles and low luggage racks.
• Additional Driver Fee Waiver: Customers with visual impairment can rent an Avis car without incurring any additional driver fees for their designated driver (All drivers must meet Avis' standard licensed driver requirements).

5. NEOSPEECH VOICETEXT


On September 30th, NeoSpeech, a provider of speech technologies for hand-held, desktop and network applications, announced that Kurzweil Educational Systems has selected NeoSpeech's Text-to-Speech product, VoiceText(TM), to power its Kurzweil 1000(TM) scanning and reading software. Kurzweil 1000 is the premier software for enabling the blind and visually impaired to scan printed text or access electronic text and then have the information read aloud to them through Text-to-Speech technology.

Kurzweil 1000 uses Optical Character Recognition and NeoSpeech's VoiceText technology, combined with a unique audible user interface, to convert text into speech. Users can choose from numerous reading voices, set the reading speed and pitch, skim, summarize, look up words using a built-in dictionary, create and edit new documents, check for spelling errors, set bookmarks and send files or excerpts through conventional e-mail applications. The product is designed to be easy to use for beginners, yet powerful and flexible enough for advanced users.

VoiceText generates natural-sounding voices from text input and offers the same Text-to-Speech solution across hand-held, desktop, laptop and network applications, while supporting a broad range of industry standard operating systems. Available in several languages, VoiceText can process any size or type of text, in applications ranging from telephone access to information or personal e-mail, to reading complete news stories, delivering the highest level of accuracy and quality.

For more information on NeoSpeech, access: www.neospeech.com.

6. DAMAX DIRECTIONAL ANTENNA EQUIPPED HANDSETS SCORE HIGHEST HEARING AID COMPATIBLE RATINGS


In view of the recent ground breaking FCC ruling on Hearing Aid Compatibility published in August, many companies have jumped on the bandwagon to offer products, information or services in response to the FCC ruling. These include DAMAX, Intl. whose press release is excerpted in part below. For the rest of the release, access www.damaxintl.com.

On September 29th, DAMAX International, the developer of revolutionary new cellular phone antenna technology, announced that hearing aid compatibility (HAC) tests conducted by APREL Laboratories in Ottawa, Canada, showed GSM and CDMA handsets equipped with DAMAX's new directional antennas scored U4, the highest hearing aid compatibility rating under the new ANSI/IEEE C63.19 standards. The same model handsets with their original antennas tested at U1 (GSM) and U2 (CDMA), the two lowest ratings.

The FCC ruled in August that 25 percent of all cell phones sold in the U.S. in two years, and 50 percent in five years must be hearing aid compatible. However, according to George Antoon, a veteran executive with Fortune 500 retailers and DAMAX VP of retail sales, "The new antennas can be installed in existing model phones today, not two years from now, and can be designed into all new model phones at costs similar to that of most current handset antennas."

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PAST EVENTS

1. 2003 ACCESSIBILITY FORUM

The Accessibility Forum held its 2003 meeting in Washington, D.C. on September 15-16, 2003. It was hosted by the General Services Administration (GSA).

To view meeting presentations and materials, access: http://www.accessibilityforum.org/meetings/sept2003/update.html.

2. WEBCAST: ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGY FOR PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES

The Webcast entitled "Assistive Technology for Persons with Disabilities: Researching Right with Relevant Questions", was presented on September 30th. The program focused on assistive technologies and research issues such as developing questions about AT that have relevance to people with mobility impairments. It reviewed understanding the importance of formulating questions that meet scientific criteria and are feasible to answer, and it highlighted the importance of involvement with people with mobility limitations, local advocacy groups, therapists, engineers and durable medical equipment dealers.

Several projects were reviewed to illustrate the development of community-based research for people with mobility impairments. Dr. Peter Blanck, of the Law, Health Policy & Disability Center, College of Law University of Iowa, was the moderator and Dr. David Gray, Professor of Neurology and Occupational Therapy at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, was a presenter.

Support for this Webcast was provided by the National Institute for Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR) through its funding for Technology for Independence: A Community-Based Resource Center (http://www.its.uiowa.edu/law/cbrc) program, the LHPDC, and ILRU.

To view the archive of this webcast, access: http://www.ilru.org/ku-ilru/online/archive.html.

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RESOURCES

1. DOJ'S NEW GUIDANCE ON GOVERNMENT WEBSITE ACCESSIBILITY

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Civil Right Division, Disability Rights Section has issued new guidance on government website accessibility. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and, if the government entities receive Federal funding, the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, generally require that state and local governments provide individuals with disabilities equal access to their programs, services, or activities. One way to help meet these requirements is to ensure that government websites include accessible features for people with disabilities.

DOJ's new guidance provides simple steps for accessible and compliant Internet access. The document can be found at: http://www.ada.gov/websites2.htm or http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/ada/websites2_prnt.pdf.

2. FEDERAL STATUTORY DEFINITIONS OF DISABILITY

Cherry Engineering Support Services, Inc. (CESSI) prepared a paper on the federal statutory definitions of disability for the Interagency Committee on Disability Research (ICDR) on July 1, 2003.

The paper is a collection of federal statutory definitions of disability as contained in the United States Code (Code). It is an update of the February 1995 paper prepared for the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR), U.S. Department of Education. This paper is not meant to be an exhaustive description of programs for persons with disabilities, but rather a reference for the various definitions of disability contained in the Code.

The Code is the official compilation of the federal statutes that are currently in force. The Code is divided into 50 titles by subject matter. Each title is divided into sections. The Code is compiled by the Office of the Law Revision Counsel in the U. S. House of Representatives.

This paper contains two tables. In Table 1, statutes are organized into nine headings: Civil Rights, Education, Employment, Housing, Internal Revenue Code, Social Security, Social Services, Veterans and Armed Forces, and Miscellaneous. Within these headings, definitions are arranged by Code title and section number. Table 2 is a cross-reference guide that illustrates the overlap in definitions.

To view the Federal Statutory Definitions of Disability, access: http://www.icdr.us/documents/definitions.htm.

3. FEDERAL AGENCY PUBLIC URL'S ON SECTION 508 GUIDANCE

This page, found on the Section508.gov website, provides links to the following federal agencies' guidance on Section 508.

To access, go to:
http://www.section508.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Content&ID=131.

• Access Board
• USAID - US Agency for International Development
• U.S. Census Bureau and Department of Commerce
• Department of Agriculture
• Department of Army
• Department of Defense
• Department of Navy
• Department of the Interior
• DISA - Defense Information Systems Agency
• Federal Aviation Administration
• General FAR Applicability
• GSA Information Technology Acquisition Center (ITAC)
• National Institutes of Health
• National Science Foundation
• NOAA - National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
• Department of Treasury
• Veterans Affairs

4. HAVA TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Civil Right Division, Disability Rights Section is in the process of developing detailed technical assistance on The Help America Vote Act (HAVA). DOJ will provide general information about voting machines, how to make a polling place accessible to individuals with disabilities, and other polling place accessibility issues. ITTATC will feature this resource when it becomes available.

There currently is a comprehensive question and answer document on the DOJ website with information on HAVA and the Voting Rights Act. To access this information: http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/voting/misc/faq.htm.

5. HAVA STATE IMPLEMENTATION PLANS

Help America Vote Act (HAVA) State Implementation Plans are now on the Web. Many of the plans are in draft format and are available for comment. The Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002 required states to improve all of their voting processes, including voting machines, provisional ballots, voter registration, and training for poll workers. Election officials, legislators, and advocates in each state are responsible for implementing HAVA quickly and inclusively. Under HAVA, states must meet several new Federal standards, including ones for provisional ballots, statewide, computerized voter lists, "second chance" voting, and disability access. In many states, people with disabilities and advocates have been active participants of the state's planning committee and many states already have a state plan in place.

To view a state's plan or to contact the planning committee, access: http://www.demos-usa.org/demos/hava/stateplans.htm.

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