JFActivist: Accessible Technology Bill Introduced

JFActivist: Accessible Technology Bill Introduced: "On Friday afternoon, June 26, 2009 Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) introduced comprehensive legislation to ensure that people with disabilities have access to Internet-based telecommunications and video programming technologies. The bill, the Twenty-first Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2009 (H.R. 3101), would

• require that mobile and other Internet-based telecommunications devices and equipment be fully hearing aid compatible, have accessible user interfaces, and offer people with disabilities use of a full range of text messaging and other popular services that are currently largely inaccessible;

• provide people who are deaf-blind with vital but costly technologies they need to communicate electronically;

• establish a process and time table for the provision of real-time text capability;

• clarify existing relay-to-relay, Lifeline and Linkup service requirements to ensure their relevance to the real world communications needs of people with disabilities;

• restore the Federal Communications Commission's modest video description rules and unambiguously establish the FCC's current and ongoing authority to expand such regulations;

• require emergency announcements and similar information to be accessible to people with disabilities through audible presentation of on-screen alerts;

• ensure that video programming offered via the Internet will be both captioned and described;

• call for all devices that receive and playback video programming to employ accessible user interfaces and allow ready access to captioning and description;

• strengthen consumers' ability to enforce their rights to communications and video accessibility through the establishment of a clearinghouse of information about service and equipment accessibility and usability, a meaningful FCC complaint process that holds industry accountable for their accessibility obligations, and judicial review of FCC action to ensure FCC accountability.

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