LEGAL UPDATE: AT-RELATED LEGAL DEVELOPMENTS SINCE BBA '03
Copyright  2004 Steven Mendelsohn.  All rights reserved.

Prepared by Steven Mendelsohn 

March 5, 2004

I.                    TECHNOLOGY IN EMPLOYMENT

A.                 TELEWORK

Telecommuting has become federal policy for government employees to a growing extent in recent years, and though probably overhyped in the media, has surely continued to expand in the private sector as well.

From the standpoint of workers and job aspirants with disabilities, telecommuting or telework presents several distinct issues.  Is it ever required by law, and what AT costs are properly allocable to the employer as normal incidents of telework or as reasonable accommodations, to name the most obvious.

In February 2003 the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) published guidelines and a fact sheet indicating that telecommuting can constitute a reasonable accommodation for workers with disabilities.[1]  While this could in certain situations encourage or even oblige a company or other employer to allow an employee to telecommute, it remains unlikely that the refusal to allow an employee to telecommute would constitute impermissible discrimination under the ADA (or in the case of federal employees under Sec.  501 of the Rehabilitation Act), unless such refusal were withheld from an employee solely on the basis of disability, or unless the employer refused to offer any other reasonable accommodation, modification or job restructuring.

What the EEOC policy guidance (check) also does not do of course is describe the nature or clarify the allocation of responsibility for the potential add-on costs of telecommuting, such as assistive devices or specialized software needed to facilitate computer- or telephone-access, or such as needed training and setup assistance arising from the interplay between the mainstream and the assistive devices.

In an effort variously characterized as intended to reduce the financial exposure of business in hiring people with disabilities, or to make teleworkers with disabilities more marketable to business as contract workers or employees, the federal government, through the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR), has established a telework loan program which makes loans to individuals with disabilities through state-based entities[2] in a manner parallel to the alternative financing loan program (AFTERP) operated under Title III of the Assistive Technology Act  of 1998 (ATA).

Issues arising in connection with eligibility for equipment loans and in connection with the administration of both the AFTERP and telework programs may prove of potential interest to P&A  programs and the people they serve in several areas of P&A  work.  Readily foreseeable issues bearing upon the rights of borrowers or prospective borrowers include: nature and availability of appeal rights in case of denial of applications; availability of consumer protections (such as time periods for contract renunciation) to AFTERP and telework loan applicants; standing to enforce lemon laws or seek relief from debt obligations in event of product defects; status of loan obligations in bankruptcy; and right to favorable credit reporting for timely loan repayment.[3]

B.                 STATE IT ACCESSIBILITY LAWS

In addition to state civil rights laws, a number of states have adopted information technology access laws that may confer rights in circumstances where federal law does not reach.[4]   Indicative of what may sometimes be achieved through such laws is the February 2004 Pulaski County (Arkansas) Circuit Court decision in the case of Hartzell and Wayland v.  Arkansas.[5]  In Hartzell, two state employees brought suit under a state information technology access statute, alleging that the state's new computerized administrative information system denied them access to information needed for their work.  Using injunctive relief, the only remedy available under this law, the court ordered the state to make the system accessible by July 1st.  Interestingly, according to the AP account of the case, the state in its turn sued the system vendor, alleging failure to comply with the terms of its contract.

II.                FEDERAL TAXES

A.                 THE DISABLED ACCESS CREDIT

Enacted in 1990, shortly after passage of the ADA,  to assist small businesses in mitigating the potential financial costs associated with ADA compliance, the disabled access tax credit[6] has had little impact, according to a 2002 General Accounting Office (GAO) report.[7] 

In August 2003 the first strongly positive US Tax Court interpretation of the disabled access credit, was rendered.  In Hubbard v.  Commissioner of Internal Revenue[8] an optometrist purchased certain automated diagnostic equipment to facilitate treatment of patients with disabilities, who would otherwise have been sent to the nearest alternative accessible location 120 miles away.  In reversing the IRS, the Tax Court held that where there was evidence that patients have been and would in the absence of the equipment continue to be sent elsewhere, and where the expenditure was reasonable ($17,000 compared to the $586,000 annual revenue of the optometric practice), the fact that the equipment could also be used with patients who had no disabilities and the fact that the optometrist had never been accused of violating the public accommodations provisions of the ADA would not defeat the claim.

This decision points the way to the kind of documentation that small businesses should create in seeking to use the disabled access credit to better serve their customers and clients.  Likewise, for individuals with disabilities who seek to back their requests for equal access with assistance in defraying its costs, this decision provides useful guidance in how they should advise small businesses.

Where the expenditures sought to be offset by the disabled access credit involve specialized items that could only be used by patients, customers or employees with disabilities (sign-language interpreters or readers), proving their nature as "eligible expenditures" should ordinarily not present a problem.  But where as here the access expenditure is for items that are universally designed, and might afford some greater convenience to patients other than those with disabilities, IRS suspicions are likely to be triggered, however unjustifiably.

Interestingly, a recent Department of Justice settlement in an ADA public accommodations case found an attorney liable for failing to facilitate consultation with a client who was deaf by providing a sign-language interpreter.  The attorney agreed to refund the client's fee.[9]  There is no reason to believe that if eligible for the credit (revenues of under $1 million in the preceding year or under 30 full-time employees), any law firm that retained the services of such an interpreter could offset in part their costs by use of the credit.  Since the credit is available for 50% of the costs of covered expenditures, after a deductible of the first $250, up to a maximum of $12,500 per year (meaning a potential credit of $5,000 off the bottom line), small businesses should be made aware of these provisions wherever possible, and particularly in connection with AT needed to better serve the public or accommodate employees.

III.             ACCESS TO E-BOOKS

A.                 The Digital Millennium Copyright Act

The DMCA of 1998[10] represents a landmark event in the history of intellectual property law in our nation.  Among other things, the DMCA substantially increased the role of criminal, as distinguished from traditional civil law, in the enforcement of the copyright law.  It also extended the scope of copyright protections far beyond the content of films, DVD's, web sites, etc.  to the means by which they may be copied, modified or displayed and viewed.  As a result, circumvention of copy-protection technology is now a crime.

The law granted authority to the Librarian of Congress to grant an exemption, however.   This exemption was authorized for circumvention of copy-protection when done for the purpose of making materials accessible in "specialized formats" for persons with disabilities.  Without such a waiver, someone who developed, used, or certainly who marketed a program or utility for converting PDF files (which are largely inaccessible to screen-reader software) into accessible formats could be subject to criminal prosecution, unless the maker of the e-book or of the operating system (Adobe) for example, gave its consent to the copying technology.  In November 2003, the Librarian of Congress exercised his statutory authority to grant this exemption.[11] 

Although this issue was primarily of concern to persons with visual disabilities, it is of potentially great significance for more and more people with disabilities as interactive capabilities and multimedia presentations proliferate.

It is likely that as efforts to enhance the accessibility of computer games, DVD's, or other resources and modalities proceed, some degree of confusion will emerge on the part of both individuals with disabilities and program or materials creators.  P&A's  may well find themselves confronted with requests for advice or assistance from people who have used innovative means for accessing various materials but who have been insufficiently familiar with the legal protections to which publishers and manufacturers are entitled.  Likewise, overzealous intellectual-property-owner cease-and-desist letters or even suits against individuals or groups who sought to make materials accessible to individuals with disabilities cannot entirely be ruled out and may venture into gray areas of the law.

These problems, along with related problems bearing upon more traditional forms of information and information-technology access, are likely to intensify with the growing emphasis on computer security throughout industry and government.  Unprecedented collisions between security and access are inevitable and already beginning to arise.  What happens when accessibility or disability civil rights statutes collide with computer security in the current legal and political environment?  Issues like these represent the first of many settings in which we are soon to find out.

P&A's with interest or involvement in such areas will need to maintain and sharpen categories of expertise that may strain their traditional self-image, not to mention their resources.  Assistance from new types of outside experts may be required in evaluating competing claims and assisting individuals with disabilities.

IV.              TRANSPORTATION

A.                 AIR CARRIER ACCESS ACT

Like a number of federal accessibility statutes, the Air Carrier Access Act of 1986, as amended  (ACAA) does not provide for private rights of action.  Although enforcement actions must therefore be brought by the Department of Transportation, individuals can initiate actions by the complaints they make.

In the past year the relevant agency, the DOT Office of Aviation Enforcement and Proceedings has undertaken a more vigorous enforcement of the law than in the past, filing ACAA violation charges against a number of commercial air lines (for violation of the regulations at 14 CFRIEND Part 382) and levying fines (almost all of which were remitted when the carriers undertook to use the funds for improvement of employee training, for services to passengers with disabilities or for other remedial efforts) in both consumer-initiated and agency-initiated investigations and reviews.[12] 

What remains unclear, pending the Eleventh Circuit decision in the Access Now v.  Southwest Air Lines case,[13] is the question of where the jurisdictional line between the ACAA and Title III of the ADA is to be drawn.

The Southwest Air Lines case involves an appeal from a Southern District of Florida dismissal of an ADA claim alleging the inaccessibility of the carrier's web site.  The trial court's dismissal was predicated on its conclusion that web sites are outside the scope of Title III of the ADA because they are not "places" of public accommodation.  If the Court of Appeals affirms, but does so on other grounds (such as that the matter is governed by ACAA, not by the ADA), then litigation under the ADA regarding a variety of other airport-related services, facilities and accommodations would largely be foreclosed.  But if the Court of Appeals agrees that the ADA has jurisdiction in the case, whatever the court's determination on the merits of the claim, then these other matters, ranging from the accessibility of airport ticketing machines, to the requirement for making gate announcements and signage more accessible, to the use of carts or wheelchairs (sometimes denied and other times forced upon people with disabilities) may all emerge as legally cognizable grievances, just as they have remained chronic irritants to many air travelers with disabilities.  Whether actionable under ACAA, the ADA, or both, all of these issues centrally involve technology, either because technology represents the source of the inaccessibility or discrimination, or because technology can create equal access.  And sometimes both.

B.                 MASS TRANSIT

Even if the Supreme Court decides the Lane case in favor of state sovereign immunity, the opportunity to use the law in a variety of ways to bring about constructive actions by regional (nonstate-entity), county and municipal governments and authorities is still likely to exist, and indeed may become more important.  It may therefore be of great importance to consider a number of subsisting and emerging technology-related issues on the local and regional mass transit front.

1.                  Fare Machines And Fare Cards, Announcements, And Maps

Leaving aside issues bearing upon the accessibility of system web sites, concerns ranging from the accessibility and independent usability of fare and ticket machines and fair cards, to stop-calling and other route information, continue to plague individuals with a variety of disabilities.  Federal oversight and enforcement is generally regarded as having been at a low level, and other forms of advocacy have generally been required.

In addressing these mass transit issues, the evolving role of technology, in itself and as it relates to attitudes, rules and practices, must be borne fully in mind.  In the area of transit stop-calling, for example, technology has become increasingly available to automate the announcement process, thereby reducing or eliminating the need for operator or driver attention to this added responsibility.  But reliance on such technology in turn gives rise to new and different monitoring requirements than have been appropriate in the past.  For instance, automated announcement systems may require frequent calibration to ensure appropriateness of volume, of display, of timeliness or of accuracy.

P&A's  who involve themselves in these concerns, through any of their programmatic rubrics, need to be aware both of the new opportunities and the new challenges created by the interaction of the law with new technology.  New issues of possible "undue financial burden" stay also need to be confronted in connection with such issues, because whereas many of the accessibility measures sought to be enforced in the past relied principally on the allocation of employees' time, and hence involved little measurable economic cost, accessibility technologies can command upfront capital outlays.  The accounting procedures used to characterize these outlays, the recovery periods assigned to them, and the sometimes less than initially obvious long-term cost-savings that may result from them, may all prove as important as the literal cost of the installations.

2.                  Pedestrian-Friendly Design

Increasingly, traffic engineering and site design for mass transit stations, pedestrian rights-of-way or transportation hubs, are being designed with safety and accessibility issues in mind.  Because at this writing the Transportation Equity Act for the Twenty-First Century (TEA-21)[14]  still awaits reauthorization, any attempt to guess which of its current provisions bearing upon these matters will be retained and what new ones may be added is premature.  Suffice it to say, in parallel with the ADA, issues of accessibility, pedestrian access and safety are acquiring a legal status and must increasingly be taken into account in the formulation and review of various public and public-private partnership designs.

Advocacy issues surrounding pedestrian access and safety, ranging from the placement of transit stops in relation to roadways, the nature and use of audible traffic signals, the provision of nonslip surfaces in crosswalks, and the use of traffic calming measures at key intersections and crossing points, are emerging, alongside traditional building access and program accessibility concerns, as key battlegrounds in the struggle to achieve inclusive communities.

C.                 PROGRAM COORDINATION

A 2003 GAO report identified 60 federal programs that fund, provide or in some way govern or directly relate to transportation.[15] Most recently, the concept of "transportation-disadvantaged" persons, including people with disabilities, older persons and others, has come into use.  This concept has come to fruition with the presidential Executive Order of February 24, 2004, establishing an Interagency Transportation Coordinating Council for Access and Mobility, under the chairship of the Department of Transportation.[16] 

Just as the Ticket to Work and Work Incentives for individuals with Disabilities Act of 1999 (TWWIIA)[17] marked the high water mark in federal policy to date of the recognition of the role of access to health insurance in the employment of persons with disabilities, it may be that transportation is the next great realization in this unfolding awareness.  Certainly, it is already clear to many that transportation is critical to achievement of the objectives of the Olmstead decision, and its centrality to employment is also widely understood.

This awareness can and must inform the priority-setting by P&A's in a variety of ways, and creates, beyond such traditional areas of concern as transit-vehicle accessibility and paratransit, new scope for policy-input and other action within federal and state structures.  The immediate key question will be whether, in light of this new coordination effort, individuals with disabilities possess any legal leverage to demand coordination among transportation-related services, meshing of service options in ways that contribute to more flexible utilization, or ultimately the right and means to go where they want when they want.  Nothing in the executive order creates or implies any such rights of course, but the awarenesses it expresses can contribute significantly to demands at local and state level for the inclusion of transportation planning and resources in general Olmead planning and in the development of individualized service and release plans.

V.                 HEALTH INSURANCE

A.                 NEW AT-RELATED CPT CODES

Common Procedures and Terminology (CPT) codes are developed and maintained by the AMA as a source of common understanding among medical providers and payers.  Each year, through an elaborate committee process, codes are added, amended or in some cases removed.

In the area of Testing and Measurement, one important new code for AT was added this year.  Effective January 1, 2004, there is now a CPT Code (97755) for Technology Assessment.[18] 

While no insurer is required to follow the CPT in deciding what services it will pay for, the CPT is vitally important to efforts to obtain general recognition of, and specific coverage for, AT.   AT assessment, as the necessary precursor to effective device selection and utilization, is in many settings the sine qua non of successful AT use.  The new code not only defines the service, but specifies other key procedural points such as the time units for which it can be billed, the documentation required and other matters.  At the very least, now when an insurer denies a claim because AT is "not medical" in nature, efforts to bring the new code and related relevant codes to its attention, and to ask why it takes a different view, can proceed with added vigor and focus.

A second code of great importance to community integration and deinstitutionalization efforts has been modified.  This code (97537) is for Community and Work Reintegration Training.  Like AT Assessment, it would be provided largely or exclusively by non-physician healthcare practitioners.

B.                 THE UNINSURED

For those who have no health insurance, questions about how to persuade insurers to pay for AT may not be uppermost in their minds.  But perhaps the greatest cruelty in being uninsured today is not only that one has difficulty obtaining adequate care, but when one does receive care it is all too often apt, unless provided on a charitable basis, to be billed at rates which exceed what public and private insurers have agreed to pay on behalf of their insured's.  Even for people who are publicly or privately insured, when it comes to categories of service or care that their insurers do not cover, such as AT will often be, their situations become, as a practical matter, little distinguishable from those faced by the uninsured.  In the currently contracting coverage environment, underinsurance, amounting to noninsurance, is likely to become ever-more common.

Until recently, it was believed by some, and feared by many, that hospitals participating in the Medicare program were not permitted to provide reduced- or no-cost care to any patients, owing to federal uniform pricing rules.  A recent letter from the Secretary of HHS to the American Hospital Association clarified that this is no longer, if it ever was, the federal government's interpretation of the law.[19] 

From the standpoint of advocacy on behalf of the uninsured or seriously underinsured, a recent development in Illinois is so intriguing as to warrant notice.  The Illinois Department of Revenue revoked the tax exempt status of a "not-for-profit" hospital because it engaged in predatory debt collection practices and contracted with for-profit entities in its efforts to collect payments from indigent patients.[20]  To whatever degree the law or political climate of other states would permit such measures to be replicated, it is clear that advocacy will be required to bring such cases to the attention of local and state agencies.

VI.              THE FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION

Almost unnoticed, the FCC is stealthily becoming one of the most important forces in our lives.  Recently, its rulings in favor of increased media ownership concentration attracted great attention, but its role is ubiquitous, whether in determining what information and entertainment you receive, when you will have to shell out large amounts of money for a digital television, and what options for phone service you will have.

For people with disabilities, the role of the FCC is becoming even more decisive.  It may not be an overstatement to say that, second only to the Department of Justice, the FCC will have the key federal role in determining whether people with disabilities can fully participate in the information society.  This key role was manifested in several ways over the past year.

A.                 TELECOMMUNICATIONS ACCESS

1.                  SECTION 255

Section 255 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996[21] established the obligation of the manufacturers of telecommunications equipment (telephones, modems, cell phones, voicemail and other equipment used for telephone communication) and the providers of telecommunications services that create the infrastructure for use of this equipment (local and cell phone companies, directory inquiry providers, etc.) to be made and provided in a manner that is accessible to and usable by persons with disabilities, where it is readily achievable to do so.  Enforcement of this statute was vested in the FCC, pursuant to implementation guidelines established by the Access Board and the Commission.[22] 

Among access advocates, one of the key issues has been the inaccessibility of cell phones to persons who are blind or who have low vision.  While camera attachments to cell phones proliferate, and new capabilities ranging from access to the wireless web to text messaging become selling points for competing handsets and service-providers, keypads grow ever-more devoid of tactile recognizability, and screen-information, ranging from menu settings to incoming numbers or battery status, remain as mysterious and inaccessible as they have ever been.

In 2003 a formal FCC complaint squarely raising these issues was filed by a consumer against manufacturer Audiovox and cell phone service-provider Verizon Wireless.  This complaint has thus far resulted in a settlement between the complainant, Bonnie O'Day, and the respondent manufacturer, pursuant to which, one model of cell phone that Audiovox licenses in this country has been made partially accessible.[23]  No resolution of the complaint against the respondent service-provider has yet been reported.

Two things are initially important about this complaint and its progress to date.  First, the FCC continues to prefer negotiation between the parties to adjudication through the administrative process, as a means for resolving issues under Section 255.  In the absence of a judicial remedy under the statute, as in other cases where judicial remedies may be remote, costly or statutorily unavailable, the existence of means for compelling an administrative oversight agency to adjudicate a question (rather than to evade it by locking the parties around a proverbial conference table) may prove critical, not only to the vindication of individual rights but also to the development of a record that can be used as the basis for advocacy in legislative, public opinion or other forums.  Moreover, whether in the telecommunications access, job accommodation or other contexts, the notion that mediation represents the best solution for reconciling the parties and enforcing the law cannot be taken seriously where the parties are obliged to address complex technological or economic questions with vastly unequal resources or knowledge.

At the same time though, the complaint dramatizes how the administrative process often offers a pathway to some measure of institutional change or reform, even when pursued by a single individual.  This may be particularly true in matters of accessibility involving technology, where objective data, tests and demonstrations can be conducted or marshalled.

2.                  HEARING AID COMPATIBILITY

Pursuant to the Hearing Aid Compatibility Act of 1988 (HACA), the FCC has finally exercised the authority granted to it by the Act to order hearing aid compatibility for cell phones.[24]   Comments have recently been requested on petitions for reconsideration or delay filed by opponents of this order.[25] 

Similarly, in the exercise of its jurisdiction over telecommunications relay services (TRS) under both Title IV of the ADA and the Telecommunications Act, the FCC ordered that relay services implement procedures and technologies for handling 3-way calling, only now to waive for one year the implementation of its own order.[26] 

As arcane and sui generis as the rules and procedures of the FCC may be, its deliberations and pattern reflects the complexity inherent in any system of rulemaking that vests any measure of discretion, as the power to make rules inevitably does, in an administrative or executive agency.  While there is no way that legislation could ever anticipate all the complexities of modern life (nor could legislative bodies ever come to agreement if that level of detail were required), the ability of presidents and governors to totally reverse the thrust of major public policies without benefit of statutory change amply demonstrates the pivotal importance of administrative agencies and delegated rulemaking in the definition, enforcement and protection of all civil rights.

VII.           OTHER COMMUNICATIONS ACCESS ISSUES

A.                 STATE TELEPHONE EQUIPMENT DISTRIBUTION PROGRAMS

Most often funded out of surcharges on telephone bills, state telecommunications equipment distribution funds have become a major source of TTY and other telephone-access equipment for persons with disabilities.  While these programs have understandably been primarily targeted to persons who are deaf or who have hearing impairments, as well in recent years to persons tho have speech impairments or vocal communication disabilities, developments in telephone technology have raised important questions concerning the potential need for their expansion and have led to the broadening of eligibility in a number of states.  As illustrating by the debate over pending legislation in Iowa designed to broaden the scope of the state's program,[27] the ways our phones are changing--becoming more and more integrated with computers and less and less stationary--and the ways telecommunications are coming to involve visual and data as well as voice communication, suggest growing unmet needs for access for persons with a variety of disabilities.

Thus far, legislative initiatives appear to have been the primary means for seeking to broaden the range of devices and provided and the categories of people covered under these programs.  But the time may be close at hand, given the growing dependence on telecommunications in all areas of our lives, when other methods for broadening the impact of these programs may be worthy of, and timely for, consideration.  Depending on the governing law and financing structure of the program in each state, opportunity and occasion may exist either for seeking program enhancement through action of the public utilities commission, state deafness or rehabilitation agency or other administering entity, or through litigation.  In this day and age, when people with motor, cognitive and visual impairments face growing barriers to telecommunications access that could be mitigated by assistive technology, there is little justification for restricting the availability, particularly of means-tested programs, in ways that, though never intended or foreseen, perpetuate and exacerbate the marginalization of these citizens.

B.                 CAPTIONING AND THE CONSTITUTION

A decade ago, when Congress cut funding for production of Playboy magazine in braille by the Library of Congress's National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, the legislative history of the budget debate left little doubt that Congress was motivated by its disapproval of the content and philosophy of the magazine.[28]  As such, the link between information accessibility and First Amendment freedoms was clear.

In October 2003 the US Department of Education, which has funded the production of captions for TV shows since 1959, summarily withdrew funding from some 200 shows.  The Department stated that it was acting in accordance with the previously unenforced congressional mandate to support the captioning of educational programs only, and it stated that the decision had been made by an advisory committee, whose membership and terms of reference it declined to disclose.[29] 

While advocates have not alleged any particular or systematic political or cultural bias in the choice of shows to be cut, the entire process raises concerns, both on the merits of the particular issue and as an illustration of how low-level discretionary funding decisions, which often reflect substantive policy goals, are often impossible to fully analyze or to subject to public input.  Advocates and people with disabilities may find themselves increasingly vulnerable to this sort of decisionmaking.  To move categorical programs into block grant funding formulas, to increase the use of competitive grants as a program funding mechanism, or to increase the use of discretionary waivers as a means for introducing flexibility into program operations--all of these have in common the elimination or reduction of procedural safeguards, formal criteria, or public input into decisionmaking.  By the time the decision operates on the life of the individual, it is effectively beyond scrutiny.

What new advocacy strategies are available for challenging government actions in this new environment of increasing secrecy, both literal secrecy and secrecy in the sense of the invisibility and inaccessibility of decisional criteria and even of the identity of decisionmakers?

---

 

NOTES

[1] Work At Home/Telework  As A Reasonable Accommodation (www.eeoc.gov/facts/telework.html).

[2] 68 FR 46,411-46,418 (August 5, 2003).

[3] It has been widely reported by state loan fund administrators and by representatives of the National Federation of Community Development Credit Unions that national credit reporting bureaus will not accept favorable credit reporting information on fewer than 100 persons in any single batch.  By contrast, negative information can be submitted on single individuals.

[4] State information technology accessibility laws are collected and summarized on the website of the Information Technology and Technical Assistance Training Center (www.ittatc.org)

[5] Hartzell et al.  v.  Huckabee et al., - - (February 25, 2004).

[6] Internal Revenue Code Sec.  44 (26 USC Sec.  44).

[7] Business Tax Incentives to Employ Workers with Disabilities Receive Limited Use and Have an Uncertain Impact (US General Account Office, Report GAO 03-39, December 2002).

[8] Hubbard v.  Commissioner of Internal Revenue, TC Memo 2003-245, 2003 Tax Court Memo Lexis 243 (No.  1764-02, US Tax Court August 2003).

[9] USA v.  Greg M.  Tirone (US Department of Justice, Complaint No.  202-53-20, January 5, 2004) (www.usdoj.gov/crt/ada/tirone.htm).

[10] The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, PL 105-304.

[11] See www.copyright.gov/1201.

 

[12] E.g., Delta Air Lines (http:dms.dot.gov/search/document.cfm?documentid=258977&docketid=16577);  and Frontier Air Lines http:dms.dot.gov/reports/reports.aviation.asp).

 

[13] Access Now v.  Southwest Air Lines Inc., 227 F.  Supp.  2d 1312 S.D.  Fla.  2002) (appeal pending).

 

[14] The Transportation Equity for the 21st Century Act of 1998 (TEA-21)  (PL 105-178).

 

[15] Transportation-Disadvantaged Populations: Some Coordination Efforts Among Programs Providing Transportation Services, but Obstacles Persist, (US General Accounting Office, GAO-03-697, June 30, 2003).

 

[16] Executive Order, Human Services Transportation Coordination (February 24, 2004) (www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/02/txt/20040224/9.html).

[17] PL 106-170.

[18] See generally, wwwcmshhsgov/medicaresthcpcs/2004codeupdatepdf.

[19] Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, February 20, 2004 (see http:cme.kff.org/Key=1962-HG-v.c.DPPL1Hl).

[20] Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, February 19, 2004 (see http:www.kaisernetwork.org/daily.report/rep.index.cfm?DR.ID=22283).

[21] 47 USC Sec.  255.

[22] 36 CFRIEND Part 1193.

[23] See Press Releases from the FCC and Audiovox Corp.  (December 18, 2003).

[24] FCC Wireless Communications Bureau (WT Docket No.  01-309, August 14, 2003).

[25] FCC Public Notice DA 01-567 (February 26, 2004) (http:n:web.fcc.gov/cgb/dro/headlines.html).

[26] In the Matter of Telecommunications Relay Services and Speech-to-Speech Services for Persons with Hearing and Speech Disabilities, 18 FCC Rcd.  12379 (CC Docket No.  98-67, CG Docket No.  03-123, June 17, 2003); and In the Matter of Telecommunications Relay Services and Speech-to-Speech Services for Individuals with Hearing and Speech   Disabilities (CC Docket No.  98-67 (February 23, 2004).

[27] Senate Filing 2072-House Filing 2300 (would extend eligibility to persons with physical, sensory and cognitive disabilities).

[28] American Council of the Blind v.  Boorstin, 644 F.  Supp.  811 (D.D.C.  1986).

[29] E.g., National Association of the Deaf Letter to President Bush (www.ddnadddorgstopenhousestactionstalerts/captioningcensorship/prddhtml).

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