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53–211 PDF 2008

H.R. lll, DRAFT LEGISLATION ENHANCING 

ACCESS TO BROADBAND TECHNOLOGY AND 

SERVICES FOR PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND 

THE INTERNET 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND 

COMMERCE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

May 1, 2008 

Serial No. 110–110 

( 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Energy and Commerce 

energycommerce.house.gov 

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE 

JOHN D. DINGELL, Michigan, Chairman 

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California 

EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts 

RICK BOUCHER, Virginia 

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York 

FRANK PALLONE, JR., New Jersey 

BART GORDON, Tennessee 

BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois 

ANNA G. ESHOO, California 

BART STUPAK, Michigan 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

ALBERT R. WYNN, Maryland 

GENE GREEN, Texas 

DIANA DEGETTE, Colorado 

Vice Chairman 

LOIS CAPPS, California 

MIKE DOYLE, Pennsylvania 

JANE HARMAN, California 

TOM ALLEN, Maine 

JAN SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois 

HILDA L. SOLIS, California 

CHARLES A. GONZALEZ, Texas 

JAY INSLEE, Washington 

TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin 

MIKE ROSS, Arkansas 

DARLENE HOOLEY, Oregon 

ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York 

JIM MATHESON, Utah 

G.K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina 

CHARLIE MELANCON, Louisiana 

JOHN BARROW, Georgia 

BARON P. HILL, Indiana 

JOE BARTON, Texas 

Ranking Member 

RALPH M. HALL, Texas 

J. DENNIS HASTERT, Illinois 

FRED UPTON, Michigan 

CLIFF STEARNS, Florida 

NATHAN DEAL, Georgia 

ED WHITFIELD, Kentucky 

BARBARA CUBIN, Wyoming 

JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois 

HEATHER WILSON, New Mexico 

JOHN B. SHADEGG, Arizona 

CHARLES W. ‘‘CHIP’’ PICKERING, 

Mississippi 

VITO FOSSELLA, New York 

STEVE BUYER, Indiana 

GEORGE RADANOVICH, California 

JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania 

MARY BONO, California 

GREG WALDEN, Oregon 

LEE TERRY, Nebraska 

MIKE FERGUSON, New Jersey 

MIKE ROGERS, Michigan 

SUE WILKINS MYRICK, North Carolina 

JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma 

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania 

MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas 

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee 

PROFESSIONAL STAFF

DENNIS B. FITZGIBBONS, Chief of Staff 

GREGG A. ROTHSCHILD, Chief Counsel 

SHARON E. DAVIS, Chief Clerk 

DAVID L. CAVICKE, Minority Staff Director 

(II)

(III) 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND THE INTERNET

EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts, Chairman 

MIKE DOYLE, Pennsylvania 

Vice Chairman 

JANE HARMAN, California 

CHARLES A. GONZALEZ, Texas 

JAY INSLEE, Washington 

BARON P. HILL, Indiana 

RICK BOUCHER, Virginia 

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York 

FRANK PALLONE, JR., New Jersey 

BART GORDON, Tennessee 

BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois 

ANNA G. ESHOO, California 

BART STUPAK, Michigan 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

GENE GREEN, Texas 

LOIS CAPPS, California 

HILDA L. SOLIS, California 

JOHN D. DINGELL, Michigan (ex officio) 

FRED UPTON, Michigan 

Ranking Member 

J. DENNIS HASTERT, Illinois 

CLIFF STEARNS, Florida 

NATHAN DEAL, Georgia 

BARBARA CUBIN, Wyoming 

JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois 

HEATHER WILSON, New Mexico 

CHARLES W. ‘‘CHIP’’ PICKERING, 

Mississippi 

VITO FOSELLA, New York 

GEORGE RADANOVICH, California 

MARY BONO, California 

GREG WALDEN, Oregon 

LEE TERRY, Nebraska 

MIKE FERGUSON, New Jersey 

JOE BARTON, Texas (ex officio) 

(V) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hon. Edward J. Markey, a Representative in Congress from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, opening statement .................................................... 1 

Hon. Cliff Stearns, a Representative in Congress from the State of Florida, 

opening statement ................................................................................................ 3 

Hon. Gene Green, a Representative in Congress from the State of Texas, 

opening statement ................................................................................................ 4 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 5 

Hon. Fred Upton, a Representative in Congress from the State of Michigan, 

opening statement ................................................................................................ 5 

Hon. Lois Capps, a Representative in Congress from the State of California, 

opening statement ................................................................................................ 6 

Hon. Hilda L. Solis, a Representative in Congress from the State of California, opening statement .................................................................................... 7 

Hon. John D. Dingell, a Representative in Congress from the State of Michigan, prepared statement ...................................................................................... 80 

Hon. Edolphus Towns, a Representative in Congress from the State of New 

York, prepared statement .................................................................................... 80 

Hon. Anna G. Eshoo, a Representative in Congress from the State of California, prepared statement .................................................................................. 81 

Hon. Bart Stupak, a Representative in Congress from the State of Michigan, 

prepared statement .............................................................................................. 81 

Hon. Eliot L. Engel, a Representative in Congress from the State of New 

York, opening statement ...................................................................................... 82 

WITNESSES

Russell Harvard, Coalition of Organizations for Accessible Technology 

(COAT) .................................................................................................................. 8 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 11 

K. Dane Snowden, vice president, External and State Affairs, CTIA, The 

Wireless Association ............................................................................................ 22 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 24 

Jamaal Anderson, Atlanta Falcons ........................................................................ 42 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 44 

Larry Goldberg, director, Media Access, WGBH, Boston, Massachusetts .......... 48 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 49 

Ken Nakata, director, Disability Initiatives and Government Compliance, 

BayFirst Solutions LLC ....................................................................................... 52 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 53 

Jesse R. Acosta, U.S. Army ..................................................................................... 58 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 59 

SUBMITTED MATERIAL

H.R. lll, discussion draft .................................................................................. 85 

(1) 

H.R. lll, DRAFT LEGISLATION ENHANCING 

ACCESS TO BROADBAND TECHNOLOGY AND 

SERVICES FOR PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES 

THURSDAY, MAY 1, 2008 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TELECOMMUNICATIONS

AND THE INTERNET, 

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE, 

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:42 a.m., in room 

2123, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Edward J. Markey 

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Members Present: Representatives Markey, Gonzalez, Inslee, 

Stearns, Upton, Shimkus, and Radanovich. 

Staff Present: Amy Levine, Mark Seifert, Tim Powderly, Colin 

Crowell, David Vogel, Philip Murphy, Neil Fried, and Garrett 

Golding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. EDWARD J. MARKEY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE COMMONWEALTH 

OF MASSACHUSETTS 

Mr. MARKEY. Good morning, and welcome to the Subcommittee 

on Telecommunications and the Internet and one of the most important hearings that we are going to have during this 2-year period. The rise of digital technologies and services meshed with 

broadband access to the Internet is driving further innovation 

across communications markets. 

As these changes challenged marketplace participants and 

spawned new services and markets, various industries have lamented over recent years that Congress and the Federal Communications Commission simply cannot keep pace. They repeatedly assert that our Nation’s laws and regulations are antiquated. They 

have successfully pressed for changes and continue to push for additional new ones. And various laws and regulations reflect new 

technologies and new competition. ‘‘Hurry up,’’ they say. ‘‘Get on 

with changing all these old regulations. Quickly update our communications laws.’’ 

However, when it comes to updating our laws and ensuring access for individuals with disabilities, we seem to be hearing a different story from the industry. ‘‘Slow down,’’ they say. ‘‘Not so fast. 

Shouldn’t we wait and see where technology is going first before we 

start updating regulations?’’ 

2 

It seems to me that the question in this area is not whether Congress will keep up with the changes in technology, but rather, will 

the industries keep up with the changes that are already happening in millions of homes all across our country already? 

That is because millions of consumers today are utilizing an 

array of exciting and innovative new technologies that are Internet 

based. Our national media environment has gone from encompassing not only the traditional media but new media. Indeed, we 

are at a point today where the people publish and blog and communicate themselves. The challenge for the industries is whether they 

will keep pace in ensuring that these empowering technologies enhance the lives of all consumers or whether individuals with disabilities will fall behind. 

The fact is that the new technologies and services in themselves 

are neither good nor bad. They only become good when we animate 

such technologies with the human values that reflect the best of 

what we are as a society. In other words, the wizardry of the wires 

and the sophistication of the software programs do little for those 

who cannot affordably access or effectively use them. 

Our job as policymakers is to help ensure such affordable access 

and utilization. And this is what the draft legislation I have circulated is intended to do. 

This is not to say that companies in various fields have not made 

efforts. Progress in ensuring that communications technologies 

serve the needs of individuals with disabilities is evident in several 

products and services offered by many companies, including Apple, 

Sun Microsystems, Time Warner, Adobe, Microsoft, and other hightech wireline and wireless providers. And as our population ages, 

there will be more of us who will inevitably benefit from these efforts. There will be a tech fair sponsored by many of those companies on May 16, so that Members and staff may see the products 

and services such companies are offering or developing in this area. 

These initiatives are to be applauded, and I commend them. 

And finally, I must note that many of the arguments being raised 

against provisions of the draft bill are eerily similar to arguments 

raised against hearing aid compatibility or against the closed-captioning bill I sponsored and successfully battled to make law in 

1990 with the help of King Jordan, the president of Gallaudet University, who is sitting out here in the audience today. Welcome 

back again, sir. 

In that debate, we were told that mandating closed-captioning 

would add $20 to the price of a TV set. That it was overly burdensome. It would crush the industry. That it would take a lifetime 

and a fortune to caption all the movies and television programs out 

there. Notwithstanding those objections, we passed my bill, and the 

President signed it. And today, not only is it indispensable to millions of individuals who are deaf or hearing-impaired, but closedcaptioning is used in immigrant families to help them learn the 

language and seen in sports bars across the country. Moreover, the 

mandate didn’t cost remotely close to $20. It cost about $1 per TV 

set. 

The purpose of today’s hearing is to better understand the needs 

of individuals with disabilities, as well as their excitement about 

what new technologies can offer. We will also be able to gauge the 

3 

extent of efforts by companies and industries in meeting these express needs and aspirations and how best to update our laws in the 

new digital broadband Internet environment, because even though 

the technologies and marketplace may change, the values we seek 

to instill in those technologies are immutable. 

I want to thank our incredible panel of witnesses today for being 

here. I am really looking forward to this hearing. 

Let me turn now and recognize the Ranking Member of the Committee, the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Stearns. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. CLIFF STEARNS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF FLORIDA 

Mr. STEARNS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Also, I would like to 

welcome the former president of Gallaudet University. Both Mr. 

Markey and I have played basketball out at the fine university 

against each other for congressional fundraising, and so we are 

very pleased to have him and others here. 

And I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this thoughtful hearing and 

for the witnesses, the time they are taking off to testify. 

I think, as you pointed out, the Internet is such an unbelievable 

thing that obviously no geographic boundaries exist anymore. You 

can download a movie from India, legally of course, sitting on a 

beach in Florida while participating in a videoconference here in 

Washington, D.C. All of this is made possible because the marketplace has flourished, allowing consumers to decide themselves what 

technology works for them. 

But as this technology revolution speeds along, and the marketplace continues to boom, it is important to ensure that people with 

disabilities are not left behind. And I think that is the goal of this 

draft legislation. 

All people, Mr. Chairman, should be afforded the opportunity to 

use and enjoy this amazing technology that is available. I think we 

all in this room can agree on that point. 

The question then becomes, What is the best way to achieve that 

ideal? Do we need more government regulation? That may be possible. Or do we need to allow the market to work itself in a light 

regulatory manner, touched as a possibility of letting the market 

lightly work these things through? These are questions that we 

need to explore during the hearing today. I look forward to hearing 

the testimony from our distinguished panel. 

Now Mr. Chairman, under the Communications Act, manufacturers and carriers are already required to make telecommunications 

devices and services accessible to people with disabilities when 

doing so is readily achievable. The statute also requires telephones 

to be hearing-aid compatible, requires telecommunications providers to help pay for operators that relay phone conversations between people with hearing or speech disabilities and people without 

disabilities, and requires television programs to be closed-captioned. 

Nevertheless, we are becoming victims of our own success today. 

Due to widespread deregulatory policies, many new technologies do 

not fall within the existing statutory language. To address this 

problem, a draft has been circulated by the Chairman that would 

greatly expand current disability access obligations to nearly all 

4 

Internet-enabled communication services, equipment, and also the 

software. 

It would replace the readily achievable standard with a tighter, 

stricter one that requires incorporation of accessibility unless doing 

so would cause a quote, ‘‘undue burden,’’ end quote. And it would 

allow a private right of action, enabling someone to sue in court for 

alleged violation of these requirements. 

New regulations may not be needed because the tech and wireless industries are already taking the necessary steps to make certain that their products and applications are indeed accessible to 

all people. For example, AOL, Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo! have 

joined forces to form the Internet Captioning Forum, the ICF. The 

ICF was established to overcome technology and production barriers and increase the amount of online video accessible to people 

who are deaf or hard of hearing. 

In addition, Mr. Chairman, a recent CNN story highlights how 

wireless technology is helping a Marine Corps corporal walk again 

after he lost both of his legs when an IED exploded under his 

Humvee in Iraq. Corporal Joshua Belile is beginning to walk again 

with the help of short-range wireless technology known as 

Bluetooth, which also makes hands-free cell phone earpieces work. 

This corporal has prosthetic legs outfitted with Bluetooth technology. Simply, computer chips in each leg send a signal to motors 

in the artificial joints so that the knees and ankles move in a coordinated fashion. 

So the goals of this legislative draft are laudable, and we can all 

agree on the final destination. That is to ensure that all people 

with or without disabilities are able to take advantage of the remarkable technology that is available today. 

But will this legislation take us there? Or are the obligations too 

broad that the law of unintended consequences may take hold? 

These are the alternatives we are discussing today. I hope this 

hearing will help shed some light on these questions, and I appreciate very much the opportunity to work with my colleagues and 

the disability community and industry to extend the benefits of the 

Internet revolution to people with disabilities, while at the same 

time preserving the innovation that this Internet brings. 

And I yield back. 

Mr. MARKEY. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. MARKEY. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from San Antonio, Mr. Gonzalez. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. Waive opening statements, Chair. 

Mr. MARKEY. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas, 

Mr. Green. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. GENE GREEN, A 

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS 

Mr. GREEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I would like to have 

unanimous consent to have a statement placed in the record. 

And I will just briefly talk about the hearing. I want to thank 

you for holding the hearing on the draft legislation to ensure persons with disabilities are not left behind, as voice over Internet 

protocol and other technologies are increasingly prominent in the 

5 

marketplace. I look forward to hearing our panel and thank our 

witnesses for being here today. 

We can look at all sides of what industry is doing, what needs 

to be done, so we can craft and improve the draft bill. And, Mr. 

Chairman, I am so happy you have called this hearing, because 

with every year—or sometimes every day—there are new technologies out there, and we need to make sure it is available to everyone and particularly folks with disabilities. And with that, 

again, I would like to have my full statement placed in the record. 

Mr. MARKEY. Without objection, it will be included in the record. 

[The information follows:] 

STATEMENT OF HON. GENE GREEN

Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this hearing on draft legislation to ensure 

persons with disabilities are not left behind as VOIP and other technologies become 

increasingly prominent in the marketplace. 

I look forward to hearing from today’s panel—we have a broad range of witnesses, 

and hopefully we can look at all sides of what industry is doing, and what more 

needs to be done, so we can carefully craft and improve the draft bill. 

It is clear that without government action, relatively new and developing technologies will not be available to all individuals with disabilities. 

Industry has addressed the requirements of a large percentage of the disabled 

population, but as the Internet is used more and more heavily for communication, 

as a primary source for news and entertainment, and for other purposes, we must 

make sure that this new medium is as accessible for persons with disabilities as 

analog television and landline telephone service have been over recent decades. 

Many television news channels are supplementing their news programming with 

online content, whether it is online text or video or podcasts. 

Other forms of entertainment such as online movie rentals and high-definition 

Blu-ray movie format are becoming more commonplace. 

So many of these changes and advances in technology are being driven by demands for convenience from consumers—the intent of any legislation should be to 

ensure that persons with disabilities can take advantage of, and benefit from, these 

conveniences, as well. 

There is no doubt that text messaging, PDAs, voice-command cell phone functions 

and similar features have benefited the disabled community and made communications as mobile for persons with disabilities as for the non-disabled population, but 

it is still difficult for persons with disabilities to communicate in real-time with mobile devices. 

It will likely take some collaboration by software makers, device manufacturers, 

and service providers to achieve this, but it is important that it happen. 

And I am pleased we are looking at legislation to ensure that addressing the requirements for persons with disabilities is incorporated into the development of new 

services and products, and not just an afterthought. 

Again Mr. Chairman, I commend you for your work on this legislation, and I look 

forward to hearing from today’s witnesses on how we can improve this draft. 

Mr. MARKEY. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Upton. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. FRED UPTON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN 

Mr. UPTON. Well thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I would just like 

to say that I look forward to working with you and Chairman Dingell, Ranking Member Barton, and my good friend, Ranking Member Stearns of this subcommittee, to move legislation on down the 

road. 

This is an important issue. For me, I have a long record in terms 

of helping folks on the disabled side of our country. It was one of 

my first pieces of legislation when I worked with Kweisi Mfume to 

6 

allow a tax credit, to provide a tax credit for small businesses to 

comply with the ADA bill. I knew that it wasn’t small businesses 

that wanted to discriminate against those with disabilities. But we 

needed to afford them the means so they could in effect make the 

changes in their storefronts, their stairs, their restrooms, their 

counters, to try and make it in fact more accessible. And we have 

seen great strides since the passage of that legislation that was 

signed by Bush 41. 

But the world has changed. Communications devices, the Internet, computers, telephones, all those different things have changed 

quite dramatically from where we were back in 1990, as you cited 

the legislation on the streaming on TVs. And we need to work with 

industry and with the community to make sure that in fact no family is left behind. 

And I think you have done a good stab in terms of the first draft 

of this legislation. I just want to pledge that I look forward to 

working with you to improve this legislation further so we can get 

something through the Congress. And I yield back my time. 

Mr. MARKEY. The gentleman’s time has expired. The Chair recognizes the gentlelady from California, Ms. Capps. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. LOIS CAPPS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA 

Ms. CAPPS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you so much 

for holding this hearing and for your leadership on the issue of 

communications and media accessibility. 

I am so grateful to each of our panelists, who have taken the 

time and the effort to appear before us today. We really are welcoming your testimony. I look forward to learning many things 

from you. 

The draft bill that we are discussing today is an important first 

step in ensuring that our latest communications revolution does 

not leave behind persons with hearing, speech, and vision disabilities. 

Mr. Chairman, I have to confess that I have already learned 

something in this hearing, and that is that it took legislative action, a bill passed by Congress and signed into law, to have this 

caption scroll across the bottom of my television set and the one 

that we are looking at here. It took an act of Congress for that to 

happen. I always took it for granted that it was always there. It 

shows how important hearings like this are and the legislation that 

can lead to further changes. So I thank you for that strong tradition that we are following, hopefully, out of this hearing today. 

In preparing for today’s hearing, I was struck by the number of 

everyday tasks that can be taken for granted by individuals without sensory impairments. We really do take for granted all of these 

abilities that we have and don’t realize what the world is like for 

someone who is limited in any one of the areas of the senses. But 

Internet accessibility, video programming, and navigating television and cell phone menus can be nearly impossible or really impossible for persons with disabilities. From my perspective, these 

technologies have existed long enough now for compatibility issues 

to have been addressed by the industries. 

7 

So I am disappointed by what I interpret—I will wait to be instructed by our panelists—but I believe that there is a lack of will 

among many industry actors to address these concerns on their 

own. I encourage them to incorporate the concept of universal design into their product development cycle. There is no reason not 

to do this. Simply put, the Internet and IP-based technologies hold 

enormous potential for persons with disabilities. The right assistive 

technologies can allow for so much greater independence, employment opportunities, and social interactions. So there isn’t any reason why the incredible advancements we are witnessing today, 

using every day, taking advantage of every day, would exclude the 

very people who would benefit the most from these technologies. So 

again, I thank you for this hearing. I look forward to the testimony 

of our witnesses, and I yield back. 

Mr. MARKEY. Great. The gentlelady’s time has expired. The 

Chair recognizes the gentlelady from California, Ms. Solis. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. HILDA L. SOLIS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA 

Ms. SOLIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member 

Stearns, for holding this very important hearing. Today we are taking an important step forward to ensure that those with disabilities 

can still enjoy the innovations of telecommunications. With innovative technologies like Internet phone service and video relay service, people who are vision-impaired or hearing-impaired have new 

options to communicate. 

It is important also to ensure that advancements in technology 

don’t leave behind vision-impaired or hearing-impaired persons 

who speak another language other than English. And I say that because in my own congressional district, about 68 percent of the 

families do not speak English. They speak another language. And 

under current law, Telecommunications Relay Service, TRS, providers are required to provide Spanish services to interstate callers, 

and VRS providers operate in both Spanish and English. And for 

closed-captioning, the FCC has been phasing in requirements for 

Spanish-language television. And by 2010, all Spanish-language 

television will be closed-captioned in Spanish, which I think is really important. 

And I am a cosponsor of the Training For Realtime Writers Act 

which would provide competitive grants to train and recruit transcribers who produce closed-captioning, as well as in other fields— 

something very important. While this legislation is not in the jurisdiction of this committee, it is important to note that we must ensure that the workforce of captioners remains steady and does include and is more inclusive of other languages. 

I look forward to learning from all our witnesses today. And I 

thank them and those in the audience, too. I am very proud that 

we are having this hearing. I also want to thank the Chairman for 

his pioneering work on captioning. That is something new that I 

learned today. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MARKEY. Great. The gentlelady’s time has expired. All time 

for opening statements from Members has expired. We are now 

going to turn to our panel of expert witnesses. 

8 

And our first witness is Russell Harvard, who is an actor who 

has appeared in film and television. His most recent appearance 

was in the Oscar award-winning movie There Will Be Blood, where 

he played the adult son of Daniel Day-Lewis. Mr. Harvard has also 

appeared on CSI: New York with Marlee Matlin. 

Mr. Harvard, you are in good company, as Ms. Matlin appeared 

before this subcommittee. So we welcome you here. Mr. Harvard is 

the third generation of deaf individuals in his family. Mr. Harvard, 

we look forward to hearing your perspective as a young person with 

disabilities and your views on the promises this new generation of 

technology brings to you and to your peers. 

STATEMENT OF RUSSELL HARVARD, COALITION OF 

ORGANIZATIONS FOR ACCESSIBLE TECHNOLOGY (COAT) 

Mr. HARVARD. Thank you, Chairman Markey and Ranking Member Stearns and members of the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet. I want to thank you for giving 

me the opportunity to appear before you today. 

My name, as you said, is Russell Harvard, and I am an actor, 

and I am deaf. I am a third-generation deaf person in the family. 

I am honored to have this opportunity to testify on an issue that 

affects millions of people with disabilities. I am here on the behalf 

of the Coalition of Organizations for Accessible Technology, COAT, 

as they are called, a coalition that is yet only 1-year-old but which 

has already grown to nearly 200 national and regional and community-based organizations dedicated to ensuring that Americans 

with hearing, vision, speech and other disabilities are not left behind as the Nation moves to innovate Internet and digital communications technologies. 

Like many consumers, I am a big fan of technology. It empowers 

me to access the information I need to be successful in my profession and as an active citizen. Unfortunately, all too often, I and 

other people with disabilities like me have been left behind as technology has advanced. For example, back in the 1980s, my family 

paid $200 for a captioning decoder box, because TV didn’t have the 

ability to display captions on their own. When my family’s decoder 

box got too hot, the captions would flicker, making them hard to 

read. I remember my stepmom would not let me watch any television for an hour before All My Children just so the decoder box 

would be cool enough for her favorite program. 

It took a law developed by your subcommittee to require all TVs 

with screens larger than 13 inches to have chips to display closed 

captions. This was a great law. At the time it was passed, the law 

covered 96 percent of all television sets. But times and technology 

are changing dramatically. Now, my friends and colleagues can 

watch their favorite shows on their cell phones or on their laptops. 

They also download and play back sports events on MP3 players. 

But once again, I and others who cannot hear are left out of this 

whirlwind of technological change. Hardly any of these smaller devices display closed captions. 

So we are going back to you, 15 years after the Decoder Act was 

passed, and we are asking you now to take this law to its next 

level. That limitation of the 13-inch screens has worn out its welVerDate Nov 24 2008 11:50 Apr 07, 2010 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00014 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCUMENTS AND SETTINGS\CWELLS1\HEARINGS\110-110 SCOM1 PsN: JIMC
9 

come. Now all devices that receive or display video programming 

should be required to have closed captioning. 

Now to my next concern, making sure that I and others can actually figure out how to turn on captions. These are exciting times. 

Digital pictures are clearer, and I am told digital sound is crisper. 

Under the FCC rules, I am also supposed to be able to control the 

font size and the color of the closed captions themselves. But the 

new digital sets are so complicated to use that few people have figured out how to access these features. 

I want to suggest to you one thing. The next time you go to a 

hotel, try to turn on the captions. The first thing you will probably 

do, as most people do, is to look at the remote control. Most likely 

you will find buttons for volume control and channel selection and 

a lot of other buttons that won’t make sense to you. Chances are 

you won’t find a closed-captioning button to turn it on. Next, you 

will probably go to the TV’s on-screen menu. Good luck as you try 

to navigate the maze of complicated choices. If you call down to the 

front desk and are lucky enough to get the hotel engineer, you can 

watch him come and try to experience the same problems that you 

had. I cannot tell you how often this scene plays out across America. 

This proposed law will fix this. It will require video devices to 

have a button for captioning on the remote control and enable 

viewers to control captioning features on the top tier of the device’s 

on-screen menu. Remember, captions are to us what volume is to 

you. 

Once I have the ability to access the captions on video devices, 

we also need to make sure that the programs received by those devices actually contain captions. This brings me to my final concern. 

It seems that everytime a TV show ends by telling viewers to 

watch the show again, with enhanced features on the Internet, I 

can’t do that. As of now, only a handful of TV shows on the Internet have captions. This is true even for programs that had captions 

when they were shown on TV. The result is that I and millions of 

other people who can’t hear are being denied access yet again. 

It was not that long ago that I can remember not having access 

to many regular TV programs. I remember when South Park first 

came out. Everyone said it had inappropriate language. Of course, 

this made me want to see the show even more. But it wasn’t captioned. And I couldn’t lip read the itty-bitty nonsensical mouths of 

the cartoon characters. So I had to depend on my hearing friends 

to tell me what they were saying. 

Another example is MTV, music videos, also popular during my 

preteen years, but also rarely captioned. Being able to see these 

shows may sound trivial to you, but as a young adult, keeping up 

with the cultural experiences of my peers was very important. 

Whenever access was denied to me, I felt—and was—left behind. 

In 1996, thanks to your work, Congress fixed all of this by passing a law requiring nearly all television shows to have captioning. 

This had a big impact on me. Captions allow me to be in sync with 

what is going on in the world. They give me the information I need, 

like the information about the upcoming election. They let me keep 

pace with current trends and maintain my independence. But now 

10 

that everything is moving to the Internet, I am feeling behind, just 

like generations of my family before me. 

In conclusion, on behalf of millions of people with hearing, vision, 

and speech disabilities represented by COAT, I urge Congress not 

to leave people with disabilities behind as the new Internet and 

digital video programming technologies become available to the 

general public. 

I ask you to pass this legislation that will continue protecting our 

ability to access the emerging video technologies. Thank you. 

Mr. MARKEY. Thank you, Mr. Harvard, very much. And by the 

way, if there was such a thing as an Oscar for congressional testimony, you would be a nominee for this year. So we thank you. 

So our next witness—— 

Mr. HARVARD. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Harvard follows:] 

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Mr. MARKEY. Dane Snowden is the Vice President of External 

and State Affairs for CTIA, The Wireless Association. Prior to his 

work at CTIA, Dane served as the Chief of the Consumer and Government Affairs Bureau. As Bureau Chief, he was in charge of the 

FCC’s policy concerning telecommunications access for people with 

disabilities. So he brings both his experience at the FCC and the 

wireless industry to his testimony here today. We welcome you, sir. 

Whenever you are ready, please begin. 

STATEMENT OF K. DANE SNOWDEN, VICE PRESIDENT, EXTERNAL AND STATE AFFAIRS, CTIA, THE WIRELESS ASSOCIATION 

Mr. SNOWDEN. Thank you. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Stearns, and members of the subcommittee. As you 

just heard, my name is Dane Snowden, and I am the Vice President of External and State Affairs for CTIA, The Wireless Association. Thank you for this opportunity to share with you the views 

of CTIA and our member companies on the staff’s discussion draft 

before you today. 

It is nice to be back before this committee, albeit as an industry 

witness instead of as the Chief of the FCC’s Consumer and Government Affairs Bureau. Today I want to share with you a sample of 

the efforts our industry has undertaken to improve the accessibility 

of innovative communications technologies for the disability community. 

Since Congress amended the Communications Act with Section 

255, the wireless industry has made great strides to make our 

products and services accessible to all of our customers. Today’s 

wireless products and services incorporate many accessibility features that help empower consumers with disabilities. For example, 

for blind or low-vision consumers, there are cell phones that use 

voice recognition. For those who are deaf or have speech disabilities, there are TTY-compatible wireless phones, and consumers 

who are hard of hearing benefit from hearing-aid compliant wireless phones. 

The development of these features for use by consumers with disabilities also benefits consumers without disabilities. And that 

helps our members achieve the ultimate goal: to better serve every 

American who chooses to participate in the wireless experience. 

The wireless industry has a proactive and proven commitment to 

providing products and services to, and collaborating with, the disability community. Our commitment to innovation in this space is 

ongoing as we collaboratively work with the disability community 

through the U.S. Access Board TEITAC process, the ATIS process, 

the FCC HAC process, and the government-industry and standardsetting bodies. 

The current regulatory framework has created the flexibility and 

certainty for the wireless industry to increase access to wireless 

services and products. This framework should be allowed to continue, and by doing so, access to current and future technologies 

will flourish without being subject to well-intended but potentially 

inflexible regulation. 

We commend the Committee’s efforts to review and ensure the 

disability community has access to emerging communications capaVerDate Nov 24 2008 11:50 Apr 07, 2010 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00028 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCUMENTS AND SETTINGS\CWELLS1\HEARINGS\110-110 SCOM1 PsN: JIMC
23 

bilities, and we have several suggestions for how the current discussion draft could be improved. 

First, we believe that the readily achievable standard should govern any new legislation. The success of the wireless industry in 

making communications products and services accessible to those 

with a variety of disabilities was due in no small measure to the 

readily achievable standard in Section 255, which allows service 

providers and manufacturers the needed flexibility to incorporate 

accessibility design and functionality in our rapidly evolving 

telecom products and services. Applying the ADA undue burden 

standard, which was originally enacted to apply to permanent 

buildings and other structures, would be problematic in an environment where products have a short life cycle and technologies are 

continuously evolving. 

Today consumers have access to mobile phones with keys that 

are easily identifiable by touch, keypad shortcuts like one-touch dialing, voice commands, and text-to-speech capabilities. These advances were developed using the readily achievable standard, 

which appropriately balances the need to foster innovation and industry’s commitment to meet the accessibility needs of our customers. 

Second, CTIA believes that the legislation should not be enforced 

by private litigation. The FCC is authorized to employ its full range 

of sanctions and remedies to enforce the accessibility requirements. 

These sanctions are and continue to be deterrents for companies 

that do not comply or comply with Section 255. 

Additionally, the FCC is better suited than the courts to resolve 

any technical issues arising from noncompliance. Regardless of the 

complaint volume, the FCC’s existing complaint process is also 

fully capable and committed to addressing any alleged failure to 

provide services and equipment that are accessible. 

Third, any new legislation should not impose new reporting requirements on either service providers or manufacturers. And finally, we hope this committee will take under consideration that if 

the wireless industry moves to an open access model, wireless 

users will increasingly obtain services and applications from third 

parties over whom industry will have little or no control. 

Any new requirements must take into account the wireless industry’s evolution to an open access regime. The wireless industry 

is committed to making its products and services accessible. Doing 

so is the right thing to do, and it is good business. We are committed to ensuring that every American is empowered to participate in the wireless experience, and we thank the subcommittee for 

its attention to accessibility issues. 

We also encourage joining Chairman Markey—encourage all 

members of the staff to attend the Industry Tech Fair on May 16, 

to see many of the products that we have developed. On behalf of 

CTIA, I thank you for the opportunity to speak and look forward 

to answering any of your questions. 

Mr. MARKEY. Thank you, Mr. Snowden, very much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Snowden follows:] 

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Mr. MARKEY. Our next witness is Mr. Jamaal Anderson, who has 

just finished his rookie season as a professional football player for 

the Atlanta Falcons, where he starts as a defensive end. 

After a stellar collegiate career at the University of Arkansas, he 

was a first-round draft pick, number eight in the first round for the 

Atlanta Falcons. 

What we are going to do from Boston and Boston College is we 

are sending you our quarterback, Matt Ryan, down there for next 

season so we can keep the defense off the field for longer periods 

of time. 

Mr. ANDERSON. Thank you. 

Mr. MARKEY. We really hope that works out, sending you the 

best player we have had in a long, long time. 

Mr. Anderson’s testimony today is informed by his relationship 

with his father, Dr. Glenn Anderson. Dr. Anderson is the Nation’s 

first black deaf recipient of a Ph.D. and has taught at the University of Arkansas for 30 years. Dr. Anderson has also served as the 

Chairman of the Board of Gallaudet. We look forward, Mr. Anderson, to your testimony on the effect of these technologies not only 

on the individual who is unable to hear or see, but also its impact 

on the family members and friends of those individuals. We welcome you. 

STATEMENT OF JAMAAL ANDERSON, ATLANTA FALCONS 

Mr. ANDERSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member 

Stearns, and members of the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet. My name is Jamaal Anderson, 

and I am honored to be here today to talk about communications 

access by people with disabilities. This testimony is also endorsed 

by COAT. You may know, now that he already mentioned, that I 

am starting defensive end for the Atlanta Falcons, but you may not 

know that my father, Glenn Anderson, is deaf. He was the first 

black deaf recipient of a Ph.D. in America and has been a professor 

at the University of Arkansas for 26 years. He was also the chair 

of Gallaudet University for 11 years. I want to start off by thanking you. In the 1980s and 1990s, your subcommittee helped pass 

several laws creating access to telephones and television. I witnessed these benefits—excuse me. I am a little nervous here. This 

is worse than a press conference. So—— 

I witnessed these benefits of these laws in my own home. My sister and I grew up watching our dad use relay services at home and 

at work. We have vivid memories of how our father used to enjoy 

watching his favorite games and captioned programs, especially 

football games and NCAA tournaments. Although I was too young 

to remember, my sister told me that before these laws, my dad 

couldn’t make phone calls or watch his favorite TV programs by 

himself. He had to depend on his mother, on my mother, excuse 

me, who is hearing and makes calls for him and interpreted what 

was happening on TV. 

Nowadays, all kinds of communications technologies allow us to 

communicate with anyone, anywhere, at any time. But as these 

move to the Internet, how many of these will continue to be accessible to people like my father? Companies often make products and 

services for people that are young, healthy, and have extra spendVerDate Nov 24 2008 11:50 Apr 07, 2010 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00048 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCUMENTS AND SETTINGS\CWELLS1\HEARINGS\110-110 SCOM1 PsN: JIMC
43 

ing cash to buy the latest and greatest gadgets. But they often forget about building devices usable for people with limited hearing, 

sight, or speech. For example, last year at draft time, Web sites of 

NFL teams and CNN posted video clips of me, but none of these 

were captioned, so my dad couldn’t watch them on his own. He 

needed my mom to interpret. Why was this? I am thinking that 

maybe these companies didn’t want to use their resources for access if their competitors weren’t doing the same thing. 

This is why we have come to you. If you tell companies to make 

communications services useable over the Internet, all companies 

will be affected equally. Laws are needed so my father and millions 

of other Americans with hearing loss like him can use the Internet 

communications products used by their friends, relatives, and fellow employees. I want to highlight a few ways the proposed draft 

will achieve this. 

While my dad and I are in different states, we communicate in 

text. In fact, before each game I look forward to my father’s words 

of encouragement and enthusiasm. I can still remember how much 

his wishes of good luck meant to me the day of our game versus 

the Indianapolis Colts. 

When I was growing up, my dad used TTY to communicate in 

text. But TTY is use of old technology that is slow, outdated, and 

doesn’t work well on the Internet. Although text messaging, pagers, 

and instant messages are replacing TTYs, they send instant text in 

verses, phrases, or lines. They don’t transmit letters as they are 

typed, like TTYs. 

By ensuring a real-time tech standard, the bill will make sure 

deaf and hard-of-hearing people can continue to communicate in 

real-time over the Internet. In addition to text messaging, my dad 

and other deaf people regularly communicate using video over the 

Internet. For example, my dad also calls me through video relay 

services. He connects to a sign language interpreter remotely on 

the Internet, and that interpreter signs to my father what I say 

and speaks back his response to me. It is an amazing technology 

that allows us to converse naturally and express our emotions to 

one another in a way that typing never could. 

But many people can’t afford these broadband services needed for 

this communication. This bill will allow people with disabilities to 

use their lifeline or link-up subsidies for broadband services. The 

bill also allocates $10 million annually for the Universal Service 

Fund for special telecommunications devices that are needed by 

people who are both deaf and blind. The promise that all people in 

America can have a telephone service never reached its population 

of 100,000 Americans probably because this equipment, which often 

provides Braille communications, costs thousands of dollars. 

Though the bill asks only for a small amount of money, it would 

make a huge difference in these people’s lives. 

The bill also does a number of other critical things to ensure full 

access by hearing aid users, relay users, and others needing access 

that are described in my written testimony. 

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my testimony. Thank you for the 

opportunity to speak before you and the members of the subcommittee. I hope my personal testimony has given you more insight into why this bill is more important for people who are deaf 

44 

and hard of hearing, including the rapid growth of the aging population. 

People like my father want to keep pace with technology so they 

can remain active and productive. I also hope my testimony has encouraged you to support this introduction and passage of the proposed bill. Thank you. 

Mr. MARKEY. Thank you, Mr. Anderson, very much. I think you 

will be receiving a text message from your father telling you how 

proud he is of you here today right after this hearing. Thank you. 

Mr. ANDERSON. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Anderson follows:] 

STATEMENT OF JAMAAL ANDERSON

Good morning Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Stearns, and Members of the 

House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet. My name is Jamaal 

Anderson, and I am honored to have this opportunity to speak to you about the importance of ensuring communications access to the Nation’s millions of Americans 

who have disabilities, and in particular, Americans who are deaf or hard of hearing. 

I am privileged to have this testimony endorsed by the nearly 200 organizations 

that make up the Coalition of Organizations for Accessible Technology, a coalition 

that is working to obtain accessible communications and video programming in the 

21st Century. 

You may already know me—I am currently a professional football player for the 

Atlanta Falcons. Next season I will begin my second year with the Falcons as a 

starting defensive end. But what you may not know about me is that my father, 

Glenn Anderson, is deaf. He is a graduate of Gallaudet University and earned his 

Ph.D. from New York University. (In fact, he is the first Black deaf recipient of a 

Ph.D. in the United States.) For the past 26 years, he has worked as a professor 

at the University of Arkansas. From 1994 to 2005, he was also Chair of the Gallaudet University Board of Trustees. 

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

During the 1980s and 1990s, Congress took major steps to improve telecommunications access for people with disabilities. In fact, as you know, this Subcommittee 

was responsible for helping to pass several pieces of legislation requiring relay services, hearing aid compatibility, closed captioning, and basic access to telecommunications services and equipment. I witnessed the benefits of these laws in my own 

home. My sister, Danielle, and I grew up watching our father use relay services at 

home and at work. We have vivid memories of how much our father enjoyed watching his favorite programs on TV, especially the pro football games and the NCAA 

basketball tournaments. Although I was too young to remember, my sister told me 

that before these laws were passed, my father could not make telephone calls by 

himself or enjoy his favorite television programs. He had to depend on my mom, 

who is hearing, to make calls for him and to interpret what was happening on television. 

Nowadays, new communications technologies are changing even more the way our 

society stays in touch and does business. Now there are all kinds of new opportunities to communicate with anyone, anywhere, at any time, from any place. For example, I can keep in touch with my father by e-mail and instant messaging through 

my Sidekick or Blackberry pager. And my father often calls my sister and me using 

video relay services (VRS). These services allow him to connect to a sign language 

interpreter remotely over the Internet. The video interpreter then calls me and interprets between us, signing to my father what I say and speaking back what he 

responds to me. It is an amazing technology that allows us to converse naturally, 

in real-time, and to express emotions far better than typing over text-based relay. 

But many newer innovations, especially technologies that use the Internet, are no 

longer covered by the federal accessibility laws that now exist. What this means is 

that millions of Americans who, like my father, cannot hear, may not be able to use 

these new technologies. That is why I am here today: to ask you to pass legislation 

that will ensure that my father and other Americans with hearing loss have access 

to the Internet and digital communications tools that are needed to allow them to 

maintain their independence, productivity, and privacy. 

45 

We all know that technology companies design their products and services for certain markets—most of the time, these are American markets that are youthful and 

able-bodied—they have more money, and they are willing and able to try out new, 

fancy devices. But often these products or services are not built for people who have 

some difficulty hearing, seeing or speaking. For example, last year at draft time, a 

number of Web sites, including sites posted by NFL teams, NBA teams and news 

entities (CNN and MSNBC), showed video clips of me. But my dad couldn’t watch 

them on his own; he needed my mom to interpret because none of the sites were 

captioned. Why don’t companies include access when they develop services and products for the general public? I believe there are several reasons. Some companies are 

simply unaware of the needs of people with disabilities. Other companies don’t want 

to use their resources to create accessible products if their competitors aren’t doing 

the same thing. I understand that it is hard for people with disabilities to create 

enough market pressure to influence companies to design accessible products—especially when companies believe their money is better spent on trendy electronic features that appeal to a wider public. 

This is why we have come to you. If you direct all companies to make new Internet-based and digital innovations used for communication accessible, all companies 

will be affected equally and no one company will have an advantage over another. 

Even more importantly, if companies ensure that accessibility features are built into 

Internet services and products now, while they are still being developed, the costs 

of including these features will be a small fraction of the overall costs of producing 

these products. But if these companies wait until later, after their products are already on the market, retrofitting will cost a lot more, and the resulting access is 

not likely to be as effective. These are the principles of universal design contained 

in Section 255 of the 1996 amendments to the Communications Act, and they are 

the principles that should be followed when this new bill is introduced and passed. 

People like my father do not want to be relegated to obsolete technologies or have 

to buy ‘‘specialized’’ equipment that is often hard to find and more expensive. They 

want an equal opportunity to benefit from the full range of mainstream Internet 

products that they see being used by their friends, relatives, and colleagues. The 

‘‘Twenty-first Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act’’ will accomplish 

these goals. Not only will it direct accessibility solutions for Internet-enabled and 

digital communications-based technologies, it will also require the creation of a 

clearinghouse of information on accessible telephone-like products and services used 

for communication over the Internet. This clearinghouse, along with greater outreach and education by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), will help 

educate consumers about accessibility solutions and how to find products and services that they can use. 

REAL-TIME TEXT IN AN INTERNET-BASED WORLD

One of the most important things that the proposed draft does is that it guarantees deaf and hard of hearing people who rely on text (rather than voice) the ability 

to continue having conversations in real-time, as communications move to digital 

and Internet-based technologies. When I was growing up, my father routinely communicated with friends and relatives using their TTYs. But TTYs use very old technology (‘‘Baudot’’). These devices are also very slow (transmitting a maximum of 60 

words per minute), work only in one direction at a time (you have to wait until one 

party finishes typing before you can respond), and generally are not reliable over 

Internet networks. Their many drawbacks have caused my father and many other 

deaf people to turn to text messaging, pagers, and instant messaging as their principal means of text communication. But the problem is that these newer methods 

do not transmit letters as they are typed (as TTYs did). Instead, with these databased devices, individuals type and then send text in bursts of phrases, lines, or 

sentence-by-sentence, rather than sending each character as it is typed. 

For millions of people with hearing disabilities, communicating by text is functionally equivalent to communicating by voice. I cannot forget how much it meant to 

me when my father sent me a text message wishing me ‘‘Happy Thanksgiving and 

good luck’’ on the day of our game against the Indianapolis Colts. Before each game 

I look forward to my father’s words of encouragement and enthusiasm. And just like 

there are times when hearing people need to have a conversation in real-time (as 

compared to sending text messages on cell phones or instant messages over a computer), there are times that people who cannot hear need to have their message received as it is being sent. For example, in emergencies it is very important to be 

able to convey and receive every piece of information as quickly as possible and at 

the exact time that it is happening. The draft bill being considered today will ensure 

that there is a uniform and reliable real-time text standard so that people who are 

46 

deaf, hard of hearing or who have a speech disability can communicate in a manner 

that is equivalent to communication between people who can use their voices. 

UNIVERSAL SERVICE

In addition to enjoying text-messaging through pagers, a great number of deaf 

people now use Internet-based forms of relay service and in particular video relay 

services (VRS). The reason is simple: these forms of relay service offer far more effective ways to communicate than traditional text-based relay services. Internetbased text relay allows the transmission of text at much faster speeds than TTYs 

and enables conversations to travel simultaneously in both directions. And, as noted 

above, VRS allows individuals who use sign language to have conversations that 

flow more naturally, quickly, and transparently between the parties, achieving a 

telephone experience that more closely parallels the experience of people without 

hearing disabilities. Approximately one million deaf individuals who sign can benefit 

from VRS as well from being able to have direct video conversations with other people who sign. In addition, millions more people who are hard of hearing can benefit 

from using Internet-based video connections to see people’s faces as they speak and 

lipread conversations. Likewise, more than 2.5 million people whose speech is difficult to understand may benefit from video communication because their gestures 

and facial expressions can be seen by the parties to the call. 

Unfortunately, not every person with a hearing or speech disability can afford to 

pay for the high speed broadband Internet service that is needed to support video 

communication. Some of these individuals meet the income criteria to be eligible for 

Lifeline/Link-Up phone service subsidies, but they cannot use these discounts toward the cost of broadband services. Because the Lifeline and Link-Up programs are 

tied to telephone network-based services, these programs offer no financial assistance for low-income individuals with disabilities who want to replace their TTYs 

with improved, Internet-based forms of communication. Under the proposed draft 

bill, individuals with disabilities who need the Internet to communicate over distances would be able to choose whether to use their Lifeline or Link-Up subsidies 

for telephone network-based services or high speed broadband services. 

A second universal service provision addressed by the proposals under consideration will greatly impact people who are both deaf and blind. Although the universal 

service provisions enacted by Congress in 1996 were designed to make sure that everyone in America has access to telephone services, one group of Americans—deafblind Americans—continue to be denied this promise. Although a few states have 

programs that distribute specialized customer premises telephone equipment, the 

vast majority of these programs do not give out telecommunications equipment that 

is accessible to deaf-blind people. One reason is that typically this equipment (such 

as communication devices with refreshable Braille key pads) costs thousands of dollars. The result is that of all people with disabilities, deaf-blind individuals are the 

least able to access current telecommunications systems. 

It is for this reason that we are asking for a very small portion of the Universal Service Fund (USF)—$10 million annually—to be set aside each year to fund the 

distribution of specialized telecommunications devices needed by approximately 

100,000 Americans who are deaf-blind. The small size of this targeted amount will 

not be overly burdensome for the USF but will make a huge difference in the lives 

of this population, which remains one of the most underserved populations in telecommunications history. Allocating these funds will also inform the world that as 

the United States moves to upgrade its telecommunications systems, it is not leaving behind this previously unserved population of individuals. 

HEARING AID COMPATIBILITY AND RELAY SERVICES

Another important provision in the bill will ensure that millions of people who 

use hearing aids, cochlear implants, and other assistive hearing devices will be able 

to use these devices with telephones that connect via the Internet. Federal law has 

required wireline, cordless, and many wireless telephones to be hearing aid compatible since 1988. However, new smartphones entering the marketplace are not working for hearing aid users, and their coverage under this law has come under question. As an aging nation, we simply cannot go forward without ensuring that these 

Internet-enabled phones are also hearing aid compatible. 

Also important is a proposal in the bill to allow users of one type of relay service, 

such as VRS, to call a user of another form of relay service, for example, a textto-speech relay service. The FCC has been interpreting the Communications Act to 

mean that relay services can only be used to provide telephone services between a 

person with a hearing or speech disability and a person without a disability. The 

result has been that people with speech and hearing disabilities who use different 

47 

forms of relay services have not been able to call each other. This surely could not 

have been Congress’s intent back in 1990 when it directed the creation of a nationwide system of telecommunications relay services to integrate people with hearing 

and speech disabilities into the public telecommunications network! 

CONCLUSION

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my testimony. We call upon Congress to ensure that 

people with disabilities—including the rapidly growing population of senior citizens 

who experience reduced hearing with increasing frequency—are not left behind as 

communications technologies move to the Internet and new digital technologies. 

Thank you for the opportunity to speak before you and members of the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet. I hope my personal testimony 

has given you more insight into why this bill is important for people who are deaf 

and hard of hearing. I also hope my testimony has encouraged you to support the 

introduction and passage of this critical legislative proposal. 

SUMMARY

Many of the laws that Congress enacted to require telecommunications access by 

people with disabilities in the 1980s and 1990s do not cover new Internet-based 

communications technologies. What this means is that the millions of Americans 

who, like my father, cannot hear are no longer protected by federal statutes guaranteeing their ability to have communications access. In this testimony, I call upon 

Congress to ensure that accessibility features are built into Internet-based services 

and products now, while they are still being developed, so that all Americans with 

disabilities can take advantage of the extraordinary benefits that these technologies 

have to offer. I urge passage of the proposed draft of the ‘‘Twenty-first Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act,’’ which will accomplish these goals of universal design by: 

• Mandating access to Internet-enabled communications products and services; 

• Requiring the creation of a clearinghouse of information on accessible Internetbased telephone-like products and services; 

• Directing greater outreach and education by the Federal Communications Commission on consumer rights to accessible communications; 

• Requiring a uniform and reliable real-time text standard to enable people who 

are deaf or hard of hearing or who have a speech disability to communicate in a 

manner that is equivalent to voice telephone communication; 

• Allowing individuals with disabilities who rely on high speed broadband for their 

communication (e.g., for video communication) to designate whether to apply their 

Lifeline or Link-Up subsidies for high speed broadband in place of telephone network-based services; 

• Allocating up to $10 million annually of the Universal Service Fund for the distribution of specialized telephone communications devices needed by Americans who 

are deaf-blind; 

• Requiring Internet-based voice communications devices to be hearing aid compatible; and 

• Clarifying that persons with hearing and speech disabilities who use different 

forms of telecommunications relay services may call each other, even when two 

forms of relay services are needed to complete these calls. 

Mr. MARKEY. Our next witness, Larry Goldberg, is the Director 

of Media Access at WGBH, Boston’s public broadcaster. WGBH has 

been at the forefront of media accessibility issues for more than 30 

years, starting with the very first closed-captioning of television 

programs. Mr. Goldberg has been involved in the technical and policy issues concerning media access for many years and has been at 

the crossroads of access efforts by both members of the disabled 

community and representatives of the industry. He brings realworld experience to our committee today. We welcome you, Mr. 

Goldberg. Whenever you are ready. 

48 

STATEMENT OF LARRY GOLDBERG, DIRECTOR, MEDIA 

ACCESS, WGBH 

Mr. GOLDBERG. Thank you, Chairman Markey and Ranking 

Member Stearns and members of the Subcommittee for the opportunity to testify before you today and to show you some demonstrations. As you said, I am Larry Goldberg, and I am Director of 

Media access at WGBH. WGBH is the home of public television series such as NOVA, Antiques Road Show, Frontline, American Experience and many educational children’s programs. WGBH is also 

where captioning of television for deaf and hard-of-hearing people 

began in 1972 with open caption versions of Julia Child’s ‘‘The 

French Chef.’’ In 1980, closed captioning was launched, enabling all 

TV viewers to select captioning at the touch of a button. WGBH’s 

development of innovative technologies, standards, and creative 

production solutions next paved the way for passage of the TV Decoder Circuitry Act, requiring caption decoders in most TV sets. Ultimately, the 1996 Telecom Act resulted in widespread availability 

of TV captioning, and I should mention, last night CBS launched 

with us Spanish versions of The Price is Right with English and 

Spanish captions, along with 60 Minutes in Spanish and English 

both. 

In 1990, WGBH developed the descriptive video service for people 

who are blind or visually impaired. DVS, or video description, provides viewers with carefully crafted descriptions of key visual elements. Today, DVS is provided on dozens of public TV programs for 

children and adults alike. WGBH also produces description for 

some programs on CBS and FOX. I am going to show you an example of video description from WGBH’s American Experience documentary about baseball’s Roberto Clemente. Listen for the added 

woman’s voice. She is voicing the video descriptions. 

[Video played.] 

Mr. GOLDBERG. That is good. The Pirates won that World Series. 

In April of 2002, the FCC enacted a limited video description 

mandate based on its reading of the 1996 Telecom Act. Commercial 

networks began providing 4 hours of described programming per 

week and ensured the proper delivery of DVS to viewers, as required by the FCC rules. However, a court challenge overturned 

the FCC’s video description requirement, arguing that the FCC 

misinterpreted Congress’s intent. Your bill, Mr. Chairman, clarifies 

that Congress intended to make television accessible to all Americans, including those who are blind or visually impaired. The bill 

will also require that programs with description reach their intended audiences, addressing new barriers that have been inadvertently created by the new digital broadcast cable and satellite 

pathways to the home. 

WGBH also houses an R&D office, the National Center For Accessible Media, or NCAM. NCAM’s mission is to identify and address barriers and disseminate solutions that enable access to new 

and emerging media. As you know, Mr. Chairman, more and more 

people are watching TV on their computers and mobile devices and, 

just as in the early days of TV captioning, new technologies, standards, and production processes are being developed to enable Webbased captioning. These innovations have not yet been widely 

49 

adopted and further work is needed on editing and dissemination 

protocols and common and interoperable media formats. 

Implementations of online captioning have emerged, however, 

and can be seen on Web sites for TV programs created by WGBH 

for PBS, including our science series NOVA, as well as on a few 

commercial Web sites. Apple now makes available some closed captioned movies in its iTunes store. I would like to play an example 

of a captioned online TV show from the Web site of WGBH’s Peep 

and the Big Wide World, a children’s math and science program. 

This Flash-based video uses an innovative captioning technique developed by WGBH and Adobe. 

[Video played.] 

Mr. GOLDBERG. Thank you. Even though examples like this have 

been successfully deployed, captioning of web-based media is still 

relatively rare. To overcome the final technology and production 

barriers, WGBH convened the Internet Captioning Forum that you 

mentioned, whose members are the leading creators and distributors of Web-based video. With a more concerted national effort, 

with strong consumer activity by people who are deaf and hard of 

hearing and with your focused attention on this matter, Mr. Chairman, I believe that a day will soon come when vastly more captioning will be available on Web sites nationwide and beyond. 

Thank you. 

Mr. MARKEY. Thank you, Mr. Goldberg, very much. 

[The statement of Mr. Goldberg follows:] 

STATEMENT OF LARRY GOLDBERG

Thank you Chairman Markey, and members of the Subcommittee, for the opportunity to testify before you today. 

My name is Larry Goldberg, and I am the Director of Media Access at WGBH, 

Boston’s public broadcaster. WGBH is not only the home of such prominent PBS television series as ‘‘NOVA,’’ ‘‘Antiques Roadshow,’’ ‘‘Frontline,’’ and ‘‘American Experience,’’ and many educational children’s programs such as ‘‘Arthur,’’ ‘‘Between the 

Lions,’’ and ‘‘Curious George.’’ WGBH is also where captioning of television for deaf 

and hard-of-hearing people began. More than 35 years ago, our production of Julia 

Child’s ‘‘The French Chef’’ was the first open-captioned TV program, followed by a 

decade of the ground-breaking ‘‘Captioned ABC Evening News’’ and other entertainment, news and children’s programs we captioned for PBS. 

In 1980, WGBH, along with PBS engineers, launched closed captioning, enabling 

all TV viewers to select captioning of a limited number of TV programs at the touch 

of a button. WGBH’s development of innovative technologies and creative production 

solutions preceded the launch of both open and closed captioning and led the way 

to the pervasive captioning we have available today. 

In 1990, a similar effort enabled the launch of WGBH’s ‘‘Descriptive Video Service,’’ or DVS, the first widely available media access service tailored for the needs 

of people who are blind or visually impaired. Exploiting the newly launched stereo 

television audio system (known as MTS or Multichannel Television Sound), our DVS 

provides viewers with carefully crafted descriptions of key visual elements, timed for 

insertion during the pauses in dialog. Initially only available on a handful of PBS 

programs, DVS is now provided on dozens of public TV programs for children and 

adults alike, and WGBH describes programs on commercial broadcast and cable networks as well. From Turner Classic Movies to CBS’s ‘‘CSI’’ and Fox’s ‘‘The Simpsons,’’ blind and visually impaired viewers have told us over and over again how 

much they appreciate having access to the electronic media their sighted friends and 

family take for granted. 

In the late 1990s and into the early 21st century, WGBH worked with its constituents in the blind community to provide the FCC with the technical, financial, 

and operational information it needed to institute a modest requirement for the carriage and delivery of video description. Based on its reading of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the FCC’s mandate went into effect in April 2002. Until NovemVerDate Nov 24 2008 11:50 Apr 07, 2010 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00055 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCUMENTS AND SETTINGS\CWELLS1\HEARINGS\110-110 SCOM1 PsN: JIMC
50 

1http://www.nprlabs.org/research/nidrr.php 

2http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms971327.aspx 

3http://service.real.com/help/library/guides/production8/htmfiles/smil.htm. 

4http://www.adobe.com/accessibility/ 

5http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/CR-ttaf1-dfxp-20061116/. 

6http://www.pbs.org/nova 

7http://peepandthebigwideworld.com 

ber of that year, commercial broadcast and cable networks provided four or more 

hours of described programming per week and ensured the proper delivery of that 

extra audio signal to their viewers, as required by the FCC rules. 

However, a challenge brought before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit overturned the FCC’s video description requirement, arguing that Congress 

hadn’t clearly stated its intention to require description the way they had regarding 

closed captioning. Your bill, Mr. Chairman, would clarify Congress’s intent to make 

television accessible to all Americans, including those who are blind or visually impaired. The bill would also assure that programs that have been produced with description reach their intended audiences, clearing the many barriers inadvertently 

created in the new digital broadcast, cable and satellite pathways to the home. We 

strongly support all aspects of the reinstatement of the FCC’s video description 

mandate. 

In 1993, with initial funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, WGBH 

launched the research and development arm of its media access activities, now 

known as the Carl and Ruth Shapiro Family National Center for Accessible Media 

at WGBH (or ‘‘NCAM’’ for short). NCAM’s mission has been to reach out to people 

with sensory disabilities all over the world to understand and ascertain their media 

and communications needs and then to take action to help meet those needs. From 

membership in numerous standards committees in all technological fields, to advising Federal agencies and corporate partners, to developing tools and processes, 

NCAM endeavors to investigate, create and disseminate practical and usable techniques to lowering barriers for social inclusion. Often with generous grants from 

Federal agencies such as the National Science Foundation and the Departments of 

Education and Commerce, NCAM has acquired deep expertise and developed accessibility solutions for theatrical motion pictures, DVDs, in-flight entertainment systems, digital set-top boxes, mobile devices such as PDAs and cell phones, and online, 

Web-based media, among other platforms. An ongoing project with NPR focusing on 

accessible radio technologies 1 has excited the interest of members of both the deaf 

and blind communities. 

Today, due to the wider availability of high-speed, broadband Internet service and 

the recognition by content providers that consumers of media want more viewing 

options and personal control of their media choices, more and more people are 

watching their favorite TV shows on their computers (and mobile devices). And just 

like in the early days of TV captioning, technologies and standards have had to be 

developed, and innovative production processes created, to enable the availability of 

captioning of Web-based media. Much of the software and platform development 

work has been done, is being deployed, and is described below. What remain to be 

addressed are common production and distribution processes that will bring to deaf 

and hard-of-hearing citizens what they’ve come to expect from the media they consume. 

These developments started as long ago as 1991, when Apple released its first 

version of QuickTime with its support of user-selectable ‘‘text tracks’’ for computerbased video. Subsequent similar developments by Microsoft (the Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange for Windows Media Player 2) and RealNetworks (which 

bases its RealText format on the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Synchronized 

Multimedia Integration Language 3) and Adobe 4 have also made the provision of 

textual representations of a Web-based video’s audio track a technically achievable 

task. Many Web-based video providers have expressed the desire for a single, universal text file format, and one initial effort toward this goal has been the W3C’s 

‘‘Distribution Format Exchange Profile’’ (DFXP) 5 which was developed by the W3C’s 

‘‘Timed Text Working Group,’’ established in 2003. Now under consideration to become an industry-wide specification, DFXP would allow for consistency across various authoring systems and platforms and would provide a common data format for 

content providers to use in providing captions, much the way line 21 (CEA–608) has 

been established as the format for analog TV transmissions and DTVCC (CEA–708) 

are now used for digital TV. 

Implementations of these various online captioning technologies can now be seen 

on Web sites for TV programs created by WGBH for PBS, such as NOVA, 6 Peep 

and the Big, Wide World, 7 and others. In addition, the video hosting Web site 

51 

8http://www.captionkeeper.org 

9http://ncam.wgbh.org 

10http://www.buraks.com/captionate/ 11http://www.cpcweb.com/ 12http://www.softel-usa.com 13http://www.InternetCCforum.org 

Hulu.com, recently launched by Fox and NBC, includes captioning on a number of 

the series it provides for free. And late last year, Apple announced support for 

closed captions in its iTunes software and store, QuickTime software and iPod and 

iPhone devices. Apple’s new technical solution (known as ‘‘.scc’’) derives its caption 

data directly from broadcast TV caption files. 

There are now a number of tools that content providers and distributors can use 

to convert their traditional television captions into captions for web-based video, or 

to create and display original captions for online media. Examples include 

‘‘CaptionKeeper, 8’’ ‘‘MAGpie,’’ and ‘‘CC for Flash, 9’’ from NCAM, Captionate 10 from 

the Manitu Group, a variety of products from CPC, 11 and the professional-grade, 

most commonly used software in the U.S. captioning industry, Softel Swift 12. 

Even with these tools and file formats available, many hurdles remain to make 

captioning of Web-based media as pervasive as it is on television. In an effort to 

overcome these final technology and production barriers, the leading providers of 

Web-based video have come together to create the Internet Captioning Forum 

(ICF), 13 facilitated by WGBH, to develop solutions that will increase the amount of 

online video accessible to people who are deaf or hard of hearing. AOL, Google, 

Microsoft and Yahoo! are the pioneer members of the ICF who will initially address 

the technical challenges presented by online video repurposed from broadcast or 

other previously captioned sources, as well as video created specifically for the Web. 

The collaboration is expected to yield a range of solutions and tools, among them: 

• A database for online media distributors, populated by major captioning providers, of previously captioned programs. This tool will facilitate the location and 

reuse of existing caption files. 

•Technical and standards documents, case studies and best practices for accomplishing pervasive online video captioning. 

• Demonstrations of innovative practices to preserve captions while editing and 

digitizing captioned videos. 

A recent meeting convened by the ICF in Burbank, California, included representatives from the digital media divisions of all of the major broadcast networks, leading cable networks, and other important players in the online media world. This 

gathering yielded the following consensus agreements and action items identified as 

needing attention to advance the cause of online captioning: 

• All of the attendees, whether from hosting sites or content providers, were enthusiastic about solving the remaining problems and moving forward to accomplish 

pervasive availability of captions on web-based video. 

•There was discussion about the benefits of a singular agreed-upon format for 

captioning on the web, with DFXP being a likely candidate. Interchange from other 

formats will be very useful and changes to the DFXP standard are needed, implementations need to be encouraged, and an organization needs to take on these tasks 

to accelerate progress. 

• Apple’s captioning solution (.scc files utilizing 608 data) for bringing closed captions to their universe (iTunes, QuickTime, iPods, iPhones) may serve for other entities as well. 

• Software translators are needed to facilitate the conversion of caption text from 

a variety of formats to common ones for the web. These transformations should include broadcast caption/subtitle formats (608, 708, World System Teletext) that can 

be turned into DFXP, .scc, etc. 

• Editing tools and systems are needed to repurpose existing caption files for use 

on web-based media. The major issues are adjusting for commercial blacks and rippling of time code when alterations are made to programs as they move to the web. 

• Research into best practices for web-based closed captioning is needed, including 

use of caption placement, font sizes, styles, user controls, and other options. 

These challenges identified by the ICF and the engaged content providers point 

the way for solutions to making captioning more widely available for web-based 

media. 

Thank you for your time, and I welcome your questions. 

52 

# # # 

Mr. MARKEY. Our next witness is Ken Nakata, who is the Director of Disability Initiatives and Government Compliance for 

BayFirst Solutions. BayFirst Solutions is a consulting firm that 

provides program management, system engineering and risk management and learning services for government agencies and private 

sector companies. We welcome you, sir. Whenever you are ready, 

please begin. 

STATEMENT OF KEN NAKATA, DIRECTOR, DISABILITY INITIATIVES AND GOVERNMENT COMPLIANCE, BAYFIRST SOLUTIONS LLC 

Mr. NAKATA. Good morning, Chairman Markey, Ranking Member Stearns, and members of the subcommittee. My name is Ken 

Nakata, and I am the Director of Disability Initiatives and Government Compliance for BayFirst Solutions. Thank you for allowing 

me to present a brief overview of my opinions on this important bill 

and to provide you—my written testimony provides a more complete description, however, of my views and provides also supporting references for my opinions. 

For almost my entire professional career, I have worked on promoting and enforcing the rights of people with disabilities. I firmly 

believe that the Federal Government plays a key role in upholding 

these rights. For 12 years, from 1992 to 2004, I had the privilege 

of working as a trial attorney with the disability rights section of 

the U.S. Department of Justice. For the last 4 years, I have worked 

as a consultant to make information technology of private companies and Federal agencies more accessible. Legislation like this 

draft bill is needed for people with disabilities to be more fully included in this digital era. 

I support the promise of this bill and its important goals, but I 

would like to spend my time today talking about two points which 

were mentioned by Ranking Member Stearns earlier today, the 

undue burden defense and the private right of action, both of which 

I see as creating potential unintended consequences, both for the 

IT industry, but actually more importantly for the disability community as well. My opinions are based on what I have seen firsthand as a former litigator, a disability rights advocate, and as a 

consultant. 

First, the current provision allowing private rights of action has 

the potential for serious unintended consequences. I believe that it 

is important to hold industry accountable to their promises, an 

opinion I have always held when I was working at the Justice Department. But I also know that the litigation can be a Pandora’s 

box, because without procedural safeguards, it is difficult to control. This point was made very clear to me when I was working at 

the Department of Justice and I was—at the time we were trying 

to develop good case law around providing Internet access for people with disabilities, particularly people who are blind, trying to access Web sites. Then, in 2002 advocates sued Southwest Airlines 

for their inaccessible Web site. And as a litigator, I thought this 

was the worst possible case we could have because it had terrible 

53 

facts and it was in an inhospitable forum. But we called the plaintiffs, asked them to reconsider. And they just pushed ahead with 

litigation. The court’s opinion was a disaster for the disabilities 

rights movement. The Southwest Airlines decision remains the single biggest impediment to Web site accessibility to this day and 

holds millions of blind Americans back from full inclusion in our 

digital era. The undue burden defense also has potential for what 

I think are even potentially more significant unintended consequences but in a very different way. I believe that the IT industry has spent and should continue to spend considerable resources 

making information technology accessible to people with disabilities. As described more thoroughly in my written testimony, however, the undue burden defense is radically different from the readily achievable defense currently in Section 255. While the undue 

burden defense has never been used with multibillion-dollar IT 

companies solving difficult accessibility problems, it will, as currently formulated by the Department of Justice and by the courts, 

require these companies to devote all or substantially all of their 

profits to solving these problems. 

As threatening as that might appear to the IT industry, I think 

it actually creates bigger problems for the disability community 

down the road. The simple reason is that I just can’t see a court 

doing that. And they are holding an IT company responsible to that 

degree. The problem of course—and the only way out, of course, is 

for the court to weaken the undue burden defense. And the problem with that, as far as I can see, is that there are other very important civil rights that hinge upon having a very high undue burden threshold right now. 

For instance, the reason a deaf patient can get a sign language 

interpreter before a risky operation at a hospital is because the 

undue burden threshold is so high. The reason state and local governments have to make all of their programs and services accessible to people with disabilities is because we have a very high 

undue burden threshold. 

As an attorney who has worked in the disability rights field for 

such a long time, I would be very saddened to see the progress that 

we have made over the last two decades of ensuring the basic 

rights for people with disabilities eroded by using the undo standard here. These unintended consequences, however, don’t have to 

become a reality. 

I thank the subcommittee for its hard work in creating a sensible 

law that helps level the playing field for our Nation’s 54 million 

people with disabilities. I support your work, but I would urge you 

to do so carefully. And I look forward very much to your questions, 

and I hope that I can continue working with you as you move forward in this important work. 

Mr. MARKEY. Thank you very much, Mr. Nakata. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Nakata follows:] 

STATEMENT OF KEN NAKATA

Good morning, Chairman Markey, Ranking Member Stearns, and members of the 

Subcommittee. My name is Ken Nakata, and I am the Director of Disability Initiatives and Government Compliance for BayFirst Solutions LLC. I am testifying 

today, however, in my personal capacity. Thank you for the opportunity to present 

54 

my independent views on the staff discussion draft of the Twenty-first Century 

Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2008. 

Since 2004, I have worked in the Seattle office of a Washington, DC-based consulting firm. My focus is helping government and industry make its information 

technology accessible. I work with a young and highly motivated team of software 

developers and testers helping large Federal agencies and corporations meet the 

needs of their customers and employees with disabilities. This work involves developing innovative solutions as well as applying well-understood existing solutions to 

large or complex accessibility problems. 

Before 2004, I was a trial attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice. For 12 

years, I worked at the Department on enforcement of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and on helping the Federal government implement Section 508 of 

the Rehabilitation Act. In that role, I represented the United States numerous times 

in Federal court and vigorously enforced some of the Department of Justice’s first 

cases under the ADA. I have worked on many controversial cases with broad social 

impact and many less controversial cases with smaller impact. I have also been 

asked by Federal courts to participate as amicus curiae, in order to present the position of the United States where the constitutionality of a Federal statute has been 

called into question. 

My Department of Justice experience also includes a deep focus on information 

technology. I worked extensively with disability advocates, industry, and government when I helped the Federal Government make its information technology accessible as a result of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act. In that role, I helped develop the Section 508 regulations for accessible electronic and information technology, helped create the Federal Government’s technical assistance for implementing Section 508, oversaw all three government-wide surveys conducted by the 

Attorney General, and co-authored all of the Attorney General’s reports to the President and the Congress on Section 508 compliance. My work in information technology also extends beyond Section 508, as I have authored white papers and presented on the intersection between other disability rights laws and the Internet. 

Much of the staff discussion draft of the Twenty-first Century Communications 

and Video Accessibility Act of 2008 is focused on improving access for people with 

disabilities to Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telecommunications services and 

on providing captioning for Internet-delivered media content. I support these goals 

and commend the Subcommittee for their efforts to further them. While I believe 

that additional regulation in this area is needed, I do not support a private right 

of action (as currently drafted), and I do not believe that the undue burden defense 

is appropriate. 

I. NEED FOR MORE EFFECTIVE LEGISLATION

Title I of the Twenty-first Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act 

of 2008 bill is focused on improving access for people with disabilities to Voice over 

Internet Protocol (VoIP) telecommunications. I believe that this legislation is important because of the growing importance of VoIP communication and because the proposed bill corrects a communication gap present in Section 255 of the Communications Act. 

In 1990, Congress passed the ADA, which is now widely seen as the most important civil rights law since the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title IV of the ADA required 

telephone companies to provide relay services for deaf and hard of hearing customers. By the time of the ADA’s passage, telecommunication devices for the deaf 

(TDDs) were a well-understood and proven technology. By creating relay services, 

millions of American businesses were suddenly ‘‘open for business’’ to deaf and hard 

of hearing customers who could not otherwise communicate by telephone. Much 

work remains before VoIP and real-time text can provide a complete alternative to 

TDDs. I commend the Subcommittee for furthering this work and helping ensure 

that people with disabilities can participate meaningfully in our digital age. 

Title I of the proposed legislation also seeks to make the accessibility efforts by 

manufacturers and service providers more transparent to consumers. Specifically, 

the draft requires manufacturers and service providers to file a ‘‘written accessibility 

and compatibility impact analysis’’ for each product or service. While I cannot comment on the competitive impact or legal risk that providing an impact analysis may 

create for manufacturers and service providers, some additional steps beyond the 

current Section 255 framework would help address the perception of a market failure of Section 255. I trust members of industry when they identify their successes 

under Section 255 in developing more accessible products. But, I also appreciate the 

frustration I hear from members of the disability community when they describe 

how their needs are not being met. If the market has failed with Section 255, it 

55 

isn’t from a lack of innovation but a lack of communication. More needs to be done 

to ensure that industry can effectively communicate that it understands the needs 

of the disabled community—and that it is responding. Making the process more 

open and more transparent also fosters greater opportunities for partnership between industry and advocates in the disability community. Working together and 

helping each other understand both the opportunities and the limitations each faces 

will better enable us to provide greater accessibility. While providing ‘‘written accessibility and compatibility impact analysis’’ may prove to not be the ideal solution 

(particularly in combination with other provisions as described below), some mechanism that improves communication between industry and consumers is a step in the 

right direction. For instance, the Subcommittee’s proposal for a clearinghouse in 

Section 104 should be particularly useful and may advance accessibility for everyone. 

Title II of the draft bill focuses on captioning and video descriptions for Internetbased multimedia content and seeks to reinstate the Commission’s video description 

regulation struck down in Motion Picture Association of America v. FCC, 309 F.3d 

796 (D.C. Cir. 2002). As more and more multimedia content is created, we face an 

increasing backlog of content that fails to meet the needs of people with disabilities. 

I commend the Subcommittee for recognizing that need and spurring this key work 

forward. 

Both sections of the draft Twenty-first Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2008 bill are excellent starting points for this important discussion. 

While this draft bill focuses on many of the needs in America that are not being 

met, I am concerned about two provisions that may harm both industry and the disability community. 

II. PRIVATE RIGHT OF ACTION IS NOT THE ANSWER

During my 12 years at the U.S. Department of Justice, much of my work involved 

enforcing Titles II and III of the ADA. This was the most rewarding job I have ever 

had. I was one of the first attorneys to join the new Office on the Americans with 

Disabilities Act in 1992, just as Title III of the ADA came into effect. I worked on 

some of the first architectural cases by the Department and represented the United 

States on many occasions in Federal court. I strongly believe that litigation plays 

an important role in upholding our laws in the right circumstances. Those circumstances, however, are not present in this bill. 

First, I believe that a private right of action makes sense when there are clear 

rules of conduct that our society can expect people or companies to follow. Our society expects architects to follow accepted accessibility standards when designing a 

building. Our society expects an event planner to think about the communication 

needs of deaf visitors and request a sign language interpreter from a local deaf services center. Unfortunately, these clear rules of conduct do not exist in the information technology world where the means by which we provide access are still unclear 

or yet to be developed. Our society expects information technology to do something 

to meet the needs of people with disabilities—the problem is that none of us can 

definitively say what that something is. 

Second, I believe that a private right of action is inappropriate because it thwarts 

innovation. All of us, including people with disabilities, benefit from the creativity 

of the information technology industry. Unlike many other industries, the IT industry regularly creates entirely new categories of products that create both barriers 

and opportunities for people with disabilities. For instance, instant messenger technologies, such as AOL Instant Messenger or Internet Relay Chat (IRC), were developed and intended as a means of easy real-time communication between computer 

users. Also, two-way alphanumeric pagers and RIM devices (predecessors of the current Blackberry) were intended as portable messaging devices for mobile professionals. Both of these technologies remained inaccessible to blind users for many 

years. At the same time, both of these technologies revolutionized communication 

for deaf and hard of hearing individuals and may now even supplant long-established technologies like TDDs. Unfortunately, a private right of action makes it far 

less likely that these kinds of technologies will come to market in the first place. 

Venturing into new product categories are risky business decisions for IT companies. 

When complicated by the risk of litigation, IT companies will be even less likely to 

innovate. In the end, however, it may be consumers with disabilities who pay the 

highest price. 

My concerns about the risks of a private right of action are also heightened by 

the lack of safeguards against frivolous or vexatious litigation. For instance, potential plaintiffs do not have to first exhaust their administrative remedies before proceeding to Federal court. As a consequence, agencies with particular expertise (such 

56 

1 49 Fed. Reg. 35,724 (1984). 

2 28 C.F.R. pt 36 (2008). 

3Stinson v. United States, 508 U.S. 36, 45 (1993); Chevron Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense 

Council, 467 U.S. 837, 844 (1984). 4 United States Memorandum of Law as Amicus Curiae in Support of Plaintiff’s Motion for 

Summary Judgment and in Opposition to Defendant’s Motion at 27, n. 31, Kovacs v. Kawakami 

(D.D.C. Feb. 24, 1995)(No. 93-2576). See also, Letter from Acting Assistant Attorney General 

Isabelle Pinzler to Senator Joseph Lieberman (Aug. 28, 1997); Letter from Section Chief John 

Wodatch to Dr. Kenneth Hrechka (Feb. 16, 1995); Letter from Assistant Attorney General Deval 

Patrick to Senator Phil Gramm (Dec. 29, 1994); Letter from Section Chief John Wodatch to Dr. 

W. Yates Trotter (Jan. 15, 1993); Letter from Acting Assistant Attorney General James Turner 

to Congressman Thomas Bliley (Aug. 28, 1992); Letter from Acting Assistant Attorney General 

James Turner to Senator Larry Pressler (Aug. 28, 1992); Letter from Deputy Director Joan 

Magagna to Dr. Richard Sagall (June 11, 1992). 5Letter from Assistant Attorney General Deval Patrick to Senator Phil Gramm (Dec. 29, 

1994). See also, Colorado Cross-Disability Coalition v. Hermanson Family Ltd, P’ship., 264 F.3d 

999, 1003 (10th Cir. 2001); 49 Fed. Reg. 35,724 (1984). 6 42 U.S.C. §12181(9). 7 56 Fed. Reg. 35544 (July 26, 1991). 

8 Colorado Cross-Disability Coalition v. Hermanson Family Ltd. P’ship, 264 F.3d 999, 1003 

(10th Cir. 2001). Compliance Now v. Newbury Comics, Inc., No. 02-11929-GAO, 2003 U.S. Dist. 

LEXIS 11883 (July 10, 2003 D. Mass.); Speciner v. NationsBank, 215 F. Supp. 2d 622, 632-33 

(D. Md. 2002); Association for Disabled Americans v. Claypool Holdings LLC, No. IP00-0344- 

C-T/G, 2001 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 23729 (Aug. 6, 2001 D. Md.) at *89. 

as the FCC) do not have an opportunity to resolve a complaint before costly and 

damaging litigation. In addition, damages are not limited. In this regard, Title III 

of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which limits remedies to injunctive relief and 

attorney’s fees, provides a useful model as it reduces the likelihood that companies 

will be singled out for litigation. 

Without some limits in place, a private right of action can hurt the disability 

rights movement. For the last 10 years, I have focused on IT accessibility, with a 

particular focus on improving access for persons with disabilities to the Internet. 

While I was still at the Department of Justice, advocates sued Southwest Airlines 

in 2002 to make their Web site accessible. When we learned about the lawsuit, we 

called the plaintiffs and warned them about the weaknesses in their case, but the 

plaintiffs pressed forward. The court’s eventual ruling in Access Now, Inc. v. Southwest Airlines, 227 F. Supp. 2d 1312 (S.D. Fla. 2002) was a disaster for the disability 

rights movement. The decision remains the single biggest obstacle to Web site accessibility to this day. 

III. THE UNDUE BURDEN DEFENSE IS NOT APPROPRIATE

Section 104 of the staff discussion draft requires manufacturers and service providers to ensure that equipment and services are accessible to and usable by individuals with disabilities unless doing so would result in an undue burden. This 

wording represents a change from the language of Section 255 of the Communications Act, which uses the readily achievable defense. I believe that the shift from 

readily achievable to undue burden is a significant change that should be avoided. 

The undue burden defense originates with the Supreme Court’s decision in Southeastern Community College v. Davis, 442 U.S. 397 (1979). Since then, the undue 

burden defense has developed through the Department of Justice regulations for 

Section 504 1 and the Americans with Disabilities Act. 2 Federal courts defer to these 

regulations and the Department of Justice’s interpretations of undue burden in litigation. 3 These interpretations make clear that all of the financial resources of a 

public accommodation need to be considered in determining whether an undue burden has been created. 4 Opting for an undue burden standard also shifts the burden 

of proof to the defendant. 5 As described below, I believe that using such a high 

threshold is counterproductive—it creates risks for innovation in industry but creates even greater unintended risks for the disability rights movement. 

Unlike the undue burden defense, the readily achievable defense is easier to understand and is a much lower threshold. The term ‘‘readily achievable’’ was introduced in Title III of the ADA and defined as ‘‘easily accomplishable and able to be 

carried out without much difficulty or expense.’’ 6 Although it uses the same factors 

as the undue burden defense, the readily achievable defense was intended to be less 

difficult for businesses. 7 It also places the burden of proof on the plaintiff. 8

There is an enormous difference between the readily achievable standard and the 

undue burden defense. Ultimately, the Subcommittee may decide that both defenses 

are inappropriate in this setting. As noted above, I believe that the shortcoming of 

Section 255 is its failure to create an open dialog between industry and consumers— 

57 

a dialog that the current draft bill will hopefully foster. I believe that applying an 

undue burden standard, however, will undermine this effort for several reasons. 

First, an undue burden standard threatens the dialog between consumers and industry. VoIP and Internet-based multimedia are very new technologies that were 

not commonly available 5 years ago. The solutions to these problems will likely 

come from the innovative minds and creative developers within industry in partnership with their colleagues from the disabled community. The threat of pending and 

difficult litigation is inconsistent with developing the collaborative spirit that we 

need to get this important work done. 

Second, an undue burden defense is particularly problematic when combined with 

other provisions of the staff discussion draft. For instance, section 104 requires manufacturers and service providers to file a written accessibility impact analysis for 

each product or service released to the public. Advocates can search for even the 

smallest area of noncompliance and then sue the manufacturers or service providers 

through the proposed private right of action. And, because the undue burden defense shifts the burden of proof squarely to the defendant, manufacturers and service providers will be defenseless in litigation. The end result may likely be that companies will be very reluctant to create new products and will be even more reluctant 

to create new categories of products (like instant messenger or two-way alphanumeric pagers) that may redefine how accessibility is provided to people with disabilities. 

Third, and most importantly, I am concerned about the unintended effects to the 

disability rights movement by applying such a high standard to multi-billion dollar 

companies central to our Nation’s economy. The undue burden defense has worked 

very well when the costs of compliance are high but still manageable. Extending the 

undue burden defense to multi-billion dollar IT corporations means that large IT 

companies would have to devote all of their profits to solving difficult accessibility 

problems. The problem I foresee is that Federal courts will be unwilling to go that 

far. To avoid that result, courts will simply weaken the definition of undue burden. 

Then, with a lower threshold for undue burden, other rights central to the disability 

rights movement that hinge on the undue burden defense will also be threatened 

and the overall level of accessibility in our country will go down. It will be unfortunate if the gains our society has won for people with disabilities over the last 20 

years are endangered by misapplying the undue burden defense. A deaf patient can 

get a sign language interpreter before a risky operation because of the undue burden defense. State and local governments make their basic programs and services 

accessible to people with disabilities because of the undue burden defense. The 

undue burden defense has worked because we have used it sparingly and only 

where it makes sense. It has worked in other contexts because it preserves the delicate balance of disability rights laws. Using the undue burden standard here upsets 

that balance. 

IV. CONCLUSION

In conclusion, I would like to express my gratitude to the Subcommittee for the 

opportunity to express my views. For almost my entire professional career, I have 

focused on improving accessibility for persons with disabilities. The Twenty-first 

Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2008 is one of the most exciting opportunities for people with disabilities to be included in the promise of our 

digital era. We will fail, however, if our zeal to create more accessibility ultimately 

creates less. Finding the right course requires carefully balancing different approaches in light of a complex background of other civil rights laws. I commend 

Chairman Markey and the other members of the Subcommittee for their diligent effort at finding the right balance. I look forward to working with the Subcommittee 

in their efforts. 

Mr. MARKEY. Our final witness is Sergeant Major Jesse Acosta, 

who has served in the United States Army since 1976. Sergeant 

Major is not in uniform today because he is not here in his official 

capacity nor is he testifying on behalf of the United States Armed 

Services. If he were in uniform, among the many commendations 

he has earned, you would see the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star, 

the Meritorious Service Medal. Sergeant Major Acosta has served 

in Iraq since 2006, where he was injured in a mortar attack. His 

58 

most severe injury was the loss of his right eye and the loss of vision in his left eye. 

Sergeant Major Acosta, you represent brave men and women 

from across the country who have returned from Iraq with disabilities. We appreciate your service. And we look forward to your testimony. 

STATEMENT OF SERGEANT MAJOR JESSE R. ACOSTA, U.S. 

ARMY 

Sergeant Major ACOSTA. Good morning, Chairman Markey, 

Ranking Member Stearns, and members of the Subcommittee. My 

name is Jesse Acosta. I am a sergeant major in the United States 

Army, and I am currently still active at this point in time. As you 

heard, I came back from the war in Iraq completely blind. And I 

am here to testify on my experiences on the outside and to represent American Council of the Blind. 

Let me start with this. Prior to being shipped overseas, I was a 

user of a Sprint wireless system cell phone. I wanted to continue 

to use the same provider when I came home with my injuries. And 

as I went to a Sprint store and asked what did you have for me 

that would be blind friendly so I can use and navigate that was accessible to me, a young lady came to me with a cell phone and said, 

Sir, right here on the number 5 key, you will find a little nub on 

it. You will be able to navigate. Above the 5 is a 2, on the right 

is a 6, on the left is a 4, on the bottom is the 8. I stood there quietly. So what about the rest? Well, it wasn’t user-friendly to me. The 

accessibility was not there. 

And by this is what I am saying is that here in the United 

States, the richest nation in the world, we have the technology to 

give us accessibility whether it be for satellite receivers, cable receivers, and televisions. Just by pressing a button on a remote control will give us that accessibility as far as a screen reader. Do we 

have that? No. 

I own a 1984 Chrysler LeBaron. You can sit behind the wheel of 

that vehicle and install or place the key in the ignition, and if you 

do nothing, it will tell you, key is left in the ignition. Once you 

start the vehicle, as the vehicle is warming up, if the fluids are low, 

it will tell you so. If the system is not charging, it will tell you so. 

This vehicle is a 1984, almost 30 years old. And it just has a little 

chip that will describe what is wrong with the vehicle. I believe it 

was user-friendly to the females. I have no idea. But still, how can 

a vehicle talk to me and still we have components on the outside, 

as I mentioned, that cannot describe what is happening to us? My 

favorite programs, CSI: Miami, CSI: New York, and also CSI: Las 

Vegas, of the three, only one has descriptive audio in it. That is 

CSI: Las Vegas. What about the other two? I am stuck on one? No. 

It is not acceptable. 

You know, I love watching these programs. But if there is something of essence in the program that is not being described, I have 

to sit quietly and wait and see what is going to be said or yell for 

my family members or my wife Connie, ‘‘What are they displaying 

on TV?’’ It is vital to the movie. 

But what if it was something, a scroll going by? I live in California. Over there we shake, rattle and roll. We also have mud 

59 

slides. But if there was a screen going on the TV set, you know, 

brace yourself, we are going to have an aftereffect, we just had a 

6.0 in central California, am I going to be able to read that? No. 

What if my family members are out shopping and there is nobody 

there? I won’t know a thing. It is very important. 

What it brings back to memory also is my child, Brittany. I remember we used to buy her electronic books. It was a standard 

book, but to the left side of that book, you could press a button and 

it would read you page by page as you went on. It would read to 

you and describe what was going on. Simple little things like that, a book that costs $1.50, and we 

can’t implement this law of accessibility? It is not acceptable. 

I urge you members, Chairman Markey, Ranking Member 

Stearns, pass this law, make it a law. Let’s not wait for it to happen. Let’s not leave it to the market. 

With that, that concludes my testimony. Any questions? 

[The prepared statement of Sergeant Major Acosta follows:] 

STATEMENT OF JESSE ACOSTA

Chairman Markey, Ranking Member Stearns, and Members of the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, I want to thank you for the invitation to discuss the very important topic of accessibility to communications for 

people with disabilities. I am honored to have this opportunity to testify on an issue 

that affects millions of people with disabilities. My name is Jesse Acosta, and I am 

a Sergeant Major in the United States Army, proudly serving our country since 

1976. In June 2003, I joined the Individual Ready Reserve program and remained 

there until I was called to active duty in Iraq in June 2005. My unit is the 376th 

AG BN DET. 4, and we were mobilized in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom on 

August 20, 2005, where we were assigned to logistical support missions at Anaconda 

in Balad, which is the largest support base in Iraq. In January 2006, I received promotion to Sergeant Major. On January 16, 2006, I was wounded in a mortar attack. 

Among my several injuries are the loss of my right eye and loss of vision in my left 

eye. 

As the result of my loss of sight, my journey to re-establish a normal lifestyle at 

times has been an odyssey. Nevertheless, I’m moving forward with all the challenges that I have had to face and will continue to do so from this point on. With 

today’s modern technology, our lives can be made a little bit easier if our government chooses to make changes to some of our existing laws that at this point in 

time do very little to meet the technological needs within the blind community. 

I am pleased to offer my testimony today on behalf of the American Council of 

the Blind (ACB), which is the largest consumer-based organization of blind and visually impaired Americans advocating for the rights of blind Americans. Comprised 

of more than 70 affiliates across the entire United States, the organization is dedicated to making it possible for blind and visually impaired Americans to participate 

fully in every aspect of American society. 

As an active member of ACB, which is a founding member and steering committee 

member of the Coalition of Organizations for Accessible Technology (COAT), I offer 

my statement. 

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

There are roughly 10 million individuals who are blind or who have vision loss, 

about 100,000 persons who are both deaf and blind, and millions of individuals with 

other disabilities who benefit greatly from accessible communications. In particular, 

I offer this testimony today in support of the thousands of veterans with vision disabilities, including those who are returning from Iraq with injuries to their eyes. 

ACB affiliate members are excited by the promises of new Internet Protocol (IP) 

and digital technologies. Like most consumers, we look forward to the benefits of 

technological advances. Unfortunately, history has shown that all too often, people 

with disabilities have been left out or left behind as these advances have taken 

place. 

We are in the 21st century with all this innovative technology, and yet we in the 

blind community have to rely on assistance from others, especially when it has to 

60 

do with accessing information through the use of consumer electronics. I own a late 

model Chrysler Le Baron that comes with a chip that allows you to be informed 

through voice output when various systems for the vehicle are in need of maintenance. If your oil is low, it will tell you so; the same applies for all other fluids. 

It talks to you. Why is it that a vehicle that was made almost 30 years ago has 

the technology that we are seeking at the present time for products like DVRs and 

cable boxes? This is beyond me. 

The draft ‘‘Twenty-first Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act’’ 

being discussed today would be a big step forward. It would amend the Communications Act—the primary statute that addresses telephone and television products and 

services—to add new consumer protections for persons with disabilities. I will address several critical communications provisions in this proposal concerning vision 

disabilities. My colleagues on this panel are addressing other provisions found in the 

proposal. 

ENSURING ACCESSIBLE TELEVISION FOR PEOPLE WITH VISION DISABILITIES

Today we are simply asking that television be made more accessible for persons 

who are blind or visually impaired. Television is a primary source of information, 

entertainment, and news, including local emergency information such as school closings, bad weather, and other disasters. While I enjoy television greatly—my favorite 

TV shows are CSI: New York and CSI: Miami—picture yourself sitting in front of 

your television watching your favorite program and having to guess what’s happening in between the lines when it gets quiet. Is there movement on the screen, 

or are they displaying something of interest that you can’t see that could be an integral part of the plot? Now let’s say it was a crawl being displayed because of an 

emergency that would be something of vital interest to us all. Unless we have someone there to read to us, we will not have a clue as to what was displayed on screen. 

Living in Southern California can present any number of weather-related challenges. We live with fires, mudslides, and earthquakes on a fairly regular basis. So 

you can see what it means to all who may need this assistance. If my TV or satellite 

receiver had a button to utilize so that I can have the onscreen text read to me, 

things would be a whole lot different. Self-preservation is critical in emergencies. 

We are asking you to reinstate the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC’s) 

regulations for video description that were struck down by the U.S. Court of Appeals 

in 2002. And we are asking you to expand those rules in two ways. First, to ensure 

that video description services are transmitted and provided over digital TV technologies, since the previous set of regulations was for analog television only. As you 

enacted previously, nearly all television stations must broadcast digitally by February 17, 2009. Those of us who are blind or visually impaired want to be sure we 

can hear the video description on that day when we watch our favorite TV shows. 

In fact, we are also asking you to give some authority to the FCC to require video 

description for more than the simple 4 hours per week of programming that the old 

analog rules required. People who are blind or visually impaired watch more than 

4 hours of television a week! 

Second, and even more importantly, we are asking you to require that non-visual 

access to on-screen emergency warnings and similar televised information is also 

video described so that we too can know where to go in emergencies, what phone 

numbers to call and what Web sites to visit. 

Primarily, what we are asking is to make sure we can use the television like people without severe vision loss. Right now, I have to ask my wife Connie to operate 

various features of our television for me. We want a requirement for accessible user 

interfaces on television equipment and controls. For instance, we want accessible on/ 

off and volume controls and program selection for TVs and other devices that receive or display video programming, including Internet-based video programming. 

This could mean, for example, providing audio output for on-screen text menus that 

are used to control video programming functions, as well as a conspicuous means 

of accessing video description, such as a button on remote controls and first-level 

access to these accessibility features when available in on-screen menus. We would 

also like to have the TV programming and navigational guides accessible to people 

who cannot read the visual display, so that these individuals can make program selections. 

61 

1 Rules were in effect April 1, 2002 to November 8, 2002. The Communications Act of 1996 

authorized the FCC to conduct an inquiry to assess the appropriate means of phasing video description into the television marketplace. Although the FCC’s response to this grant of authority 

was a modest requirement that broadcasters and other multimedia video programming providers in the top 25 major national markets provide video description on only four primetime 

programming hours per week, the broadcast and cable television industries successfully pursued 

litigation to overturn this mandate. As a consequence, currently there are no federal requirements to make television programming accessible through video description, nor is similar access to on-screen emergency information required. 

TECHNICAL AND ECONOMIC FEASIBILITY

During the period in which the FCC’s video description rules were in effect, 1 national broadcasters routinely demonstrated the technical and economic feasibility of 

description by adding this feature to their programs. With the advent of digital television, it will soon be easier than ever for broadcasters to build into the digital 

structure ways to pass video description along to viewers. In fact, it is imperative 

to immediately require that the digital television standard include video description 

while digital television is nascent, because the failure to do so now may lead to 

greater technical and economic obstacles to providing video description in the future. 

CONCLUSION

It is imperative that Congress ensure that people who are blind or visually impaired—including the rapidly growing population of senior citizens who are losing 

their vision—are not left behind as television technologies move more to digital and 

Internet-based technologies. 

On behalf of the American Council of the Blind, I thank the Subcommittee for this 

opportunity to share our concerns and urge you to introduce and pass legislation 

that will safeguard the consumer needs of millions of Americans with disabilities. 

SUMMARY

There are roughly 10 million individuals who are blind or who have vision loss, 

about 100,000 persons who are both deaf and blind, and millions of individuals with 

other disabilities who benefit greatly from accessible communications. In particular, 

I offer this testimony today in support of the thousands of veterans with vision disabilities, including those who are returning from Iraq with injuries to their eyes. 

ACB affiliate members are excited by the promises of new Internet Protocol (IP) and 

digital technologies. Like most consumers, we look forward to the benefits of technological advances. Unfortunately, history has shown that all too often, people with 

disabilities have been left out or left behind as these advances have taken place. 

We are asking for the following: 

• Reinstatement of the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC’s) regulations 

for video description that were struck down by the U.S. Court of Appeals in 2002 

and to expand those rules in two ways: 

•To ensure that video description services are transmitted and provided over 

digital TV technologies, since the previous set of regulations was for analog television only. As enacted previously, nearly all television stations must broadcast 

digitally by February 17, 2009. Persons who are blind or visually impaired want to 

be sure to hear the video description on that day. We ask also for some authority 

given to the FCC to require video description for more than the four hours per week 

of programming that the old analog rules required. 

• We ask for a requirement that non-visual access to on-screen emergency warnings and similar televised information is video described so that we can know where 

to go in emergencies, what phone numbers to call and what Web sites to visit. 

• A requirement for accessible user interfaces on television equipment and controls. For instance, accessible on/off and volume controls and program selection for 

TVs and other devices that receive or display video programming, including Internet-based video programming. This could mean audio outputs for control functions 

and a button on remote controls for first-level access to these accessibility features 

on menus. 

•TV programming and navigational guides accessible to people who cannot read 

the visual display, so that these individuals can make program selections. 

Mr. MARKEY. Thank you very much, Sergeant Major. That was 

very powerful. Thank you. 

62 

The Chair will recognize himself for a round of questions. Let me 

begin with you, Mr. Goldberg. 

As someone with a long history with closed captioning, I would 

like your sense of whether the fact that a law was passed imposing 

an obligation—1990, 1996—and the establishment for deadlines 

were helpful or not in ensuring that the entire industry served the 

disabled community. 

Mr. GOLDBERG. Yes, Mr. Chairman. Those deadlines that were 

imposed for developing the chip for the Decoder Act and getting on 

the air with captions lit a real fire under content providers and distributors of programming. We really did need that deadline, and we 

met that deadline through very good, concerted action by consumers, manufacturers, and program—— 

Mr. MARKEY. And the deadline was important? 

Mr. GOLDBERG. Very important. 

Mr. MARKEY. The Internet industry asserts that captioning of the 

Internet is technically very, very difficult for them, and it is very 

hard for them to figure it out. And these are the smartest technological people in America, and they say they just can’t figure it out, 

it is very hard. 

Do you agree? Is it very difficult for these geniuses in Silicon 

Valley, on Route 128 outside of Harvard and MIT to figure this 

out? 

Mr. GOLDBERG. Well, I think they actually have figured it out, 

as you saw today on Peep. What needs to be figured out is how to 

make it pervasive, how to make it widespread. 

Mr. MARKEY. If it is not that difficult, then what should we do 

to make sure there is more consistency in the marketplace? That 

is, that what we saw today is done uniformly across the entire marketplace? Do we need a law, do we need regulations, do we need 

deadlines put in place so that everyone meets the standard that 

you showed us on the screen today is already possible? 

Mr. GOLDBERG. I think the answer is, how do you turn a low priority into a high priority. 

Mr. MARKEY. You are saying it is a low priority for the industry? 

Mr. GOLDBERG. Exactly. And to raise that up, there are some 

really good, hardworking people in these companies who need 

something that can help drive them to be able to accomplish what 

they want to accomplish. 

Mr. MARKEY. Why is it a low priority for the industry? 

Mr. GOLDBERG. Well, the disability market is not a market. In 

fact, I think it is an example of market failure. You can’t wait to 

increase your bottom line by selling more captioning to deaf people. 

They don’t even pay for captioning. 

So there are so many other distractions and other markets to 

look at, it is hard for companies to agree to put the resources voluntarily. When they get together, they do good work together. We 

do good work together, but we all need a push. 

Mr. MARKEY. So you are saying, they are so busy trying to make 

money that it is hard for them to turn around and say, what about 

all of the people with disabilities out there—— 

Mr. GOLDBERG. It is great—— 

Mr. MARKEY [continuing]. We will get to that later? 

63 

It is not that we can’t do it. We could do it. It is just a low priority. 

We have to make a lot more money before we get to that point, 

huh? 

Mr. GOLDBERG. I think it is great they make that money and 

help invest in their disability access with some of the funding. 

Mr. MARKEY. Now, Mr. Anderson, you mentioned that deaf people have a number of options to communicate using text messaging, 

instant messaging and paging. 

With all those choices, do we need a standard for real-time text 

communication? 

Mr. ANDERSON. Yes, we do. Because that is not a real-time 

standard. 

Say you have a person with disability in trouble who needs to 

contact 911. They would have to send a whole phrase with those 

that we have out now, rather than sending it word by word—excuse me, letter by letter. 

Mr. MARKEY. And the consequence, then, is that there is a delay 

in the reaction? 

Mr. ANDERSON. Yes. 

Mr. MARKEY. And the consequences could be catastrophic? 

Mr. ANDERSON. They could. 

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Snowden, attached to your testimony is an article about handheld scanners that can turn text on photographed 

documents into speech. This is a wonderful device, and others like 

it can bring empowerment to individuals, but they are very costly. 

The one in the article is $2,000. How do we bring the cost down? 

Mr. SNOWDEN. I think, as you have seen through any product 

that comes out first to market, they are usually very, very high. As 

we perfect it and get it out to the mass market, the prices will 

begin to come down. 

You have seen that with HD televisions, as well. I mean, at one 

point you had to take out a second mortgage to be able to get one, 

and now they are reasonably priced. And the same will happen 

with these products as they go forward. 

It is a great product and a great example of how the industry is 

actually doing what I think many people want. 

Mr. MARKEY. The problem, Mr. Snowden, is, Mr. Goldberg is saying the market is not working; that is, if there had to be mass production of this device and every company had to make it, we could 

reduce the cost from $2,000 per item. 

This goes to the whole question of the closed-captioning chip in 

a TV set. If you built it for only one, it is going to be very expensive. If you build it for all 27 million TV sets that are sold in the 

United States every year, the cost goes down to $1 per TV. 

So, what would be the objection to mandating that this technology be built in? Wouldn’t that result in a much lower cost per 

unit if all companies were required to do this? 

Mr. SNOWDEN. Are you referring to the closed captioning, or are 

you referring to the menu option in the article? 

Mr. MARKEY. The empowering technologies. 

Mr. SNOWDEN. First, I would say that I don’t think Mr. Goldberg 

was saying that all parts of the industry, all parts of the market 

and—there are certain parts that I am sure he would agree that 

64 

are doing well. And I think the wireless industry, by example of my 

testimony and the same article that you have seen, were showing 

that we are doing a lot in the various areas, hitting a variety of 

disabilities. 

As we go forward, one of the things that I think is important for 

all of us, and particularly us as an industry, we have to keep understanding what people in the community want. And that is, you 

don’t do that in the vacuum, you do that by meeting with the people. And I think through the many advisory committees and the 

TEITAC process, the HAC process and things of that nature— 

meeting with the COAT Coalition. That is how we learn what is 

important. 

Mr. MARKEY. So you have heard from the community today, they 

want this legislation to pass. Would you work with us to draft it 

in a way which can pass this year, Mr. Snowden? 

Mr. SNOWDEN. We have been working with the committee and 

the members in the room today, the advocate members in the room, 

for months on end on many of these issues. 

We sat through a 2-year process for the U.S. Access Board’s 

TEITAC process with many of the people in this room here, side 

by side, multiple hours, working through—trying to figure out the 

standards. And that is the important part. Before we go forward, 

we need to have—what are the standards as we go forward. 

Larry—excuse me, Mr. Goldberg has the IC—— 

Mr. MARKEY. Can you help us, maybe—I don’t want to keep interrupting you, but what I found in 1990 and 1992, 1996, we just 

had to set a deadline. 

Would you help us to develop what the deadline should be so 

that we can just legislate that and then work out what the standard is but then with kind of a deadline for when the exam is going 

to have to be completed? 

Mr. SNOWDEN. We will continue to work and advise and consult 

with this committee on anything. 

Mr. MARKEY. Including setting deadlines? 

Mr. SNOWDEN. If that is what this committee wants to do, that 

is up to you all, of course. I think our concern with setting a deadline is first understanding the technology. 

Mr. MARKEY. I understand. 

Here is the way I view deadlines: there are some colleges in 

America that don’t give final exams. And that is really great for the 

kids that had 4.0 all the way, kindergarten through college. But for 

people like me, you had better have an exam, because I am not 

going to study until the exam is set. When you give me the deadline, I start to do my homework, right? 

It is amazing how much I can learn and get done in that final 

couple of weeks before the exam. But if it is January and the exam 

is in June, I don’t stop working. 

That is just how human nature is, don’t you think, Mr. Snowden, 

in general for most people? I hate to say it; it is just a sad fact of 

the matter. 

I think, working together, we will just set deadlines; we will give 

people enough time. But most of these people are very, very smart, 

and if they work together, I think that once the deadline is set, 

they can find the solution. They did so with all the closed capVerDate Nov 24 2008 11:50 Apr 07, 2010 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00070 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCUMENTS AND SETTINGS\CWELLS1\HEARINGS\110-110 SCOM1 PsN: JIMC
65 

tioning, the telecommunications devices for the deaf law. Somehow 

or another they met every deadline. 

Can you work with us to do that now in these areas? 

Mr. SNOWDEN. We will always work with you. I will say that I 

went to a school that had set deadlines as well. So I understand 

your point. 

Mr. MARKEY. You know what I am saying. It is like the first 

game of the season. You are not intensifying your efforts in April 

and May and June as you are in the first week of October, getting 

ready for it. 

Let me stop here and recognize the gentleman from Florida, Mr. 

Stearns. 

Mr. STEARNS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I just want to compliment your staff and my staff also for these witnesses. They did, 

I think, an exceptional job of making the argument. 

And, Mr. Snowden, setting a deadline like we are doing for the 

digital transition, February 17, 2009, I am not sure industry would 

have done anything without us setting a deadline. So perhaps that 

reinforces the argument that Mr. Markey is making, that sometimes you have to set a deadline, although Mr. Markey is also implying that if you are not working with us, we do have an alternative here, which is a hammer. So I caution him, and I appreciate 

him doing a draft here. 

Sergeant Major Acosta, I dropped a bill, H.R. 5734, myself and 

Eddie Towns, a Democrat from New York, to try and determine for 

the blind when they are in shopping centers or they are trying to 

make their way in busy streets. A lot of the hybrids now are silent, 

you can’t hear them; and we are trying to do a study to understand 

what is the implication, not only for people who are blind, but also 

for children and for senior citizens who are walking in shopping 

centers or anywhere else. What does it mean when all the automobiles are running so you can’t hear them? 

So I am very sensitive to this argument of accessibility for disabled individuals. 

Mr. Anderson, I think your life story and your father’s is very inspirational. And the fact that your father and you communicate 

even—in the face of the disability shows that you are improvising, 

you and your father, and it is working out through text messaging 

and everything. Certainly if you can, it seems like industry could, 

too. 

So I think the argument is probably that industry’s nose to the 

grindstone could probably figure it out. But I think, as Mr. Nakata 

has indicated, there is a possibility of this private right of action 

which enables people to sue in court for alleged violations. 

And going back to what he said earlier—and we talked about 

this Southwest Airlines access, now Incorporated versus Southwest 

Airlines—he said it was a disaster for the disability rights movement. 

So I hope the Chairman will obviously take that into effect, because I think what we heard today is that accessibility for Sergeant 

Acosta in his Sprint telephone—if he can get it from his 1984 Chevrolet, certainly we should have a Sprint telephone that he could 

push a button and it would tell him what to do, and it would make 

it accessible for him. 

66 

And for Mr. Harvard, who was very dramatic in his presentation—I compliment him; I also would vote for him an Oscar in 

that regard—that he makes a very, very good case for why can’t 

he have Internet access to Internet television, or why can’t he have 

Internet access to—when he moves into a hotel room, having support. I know when I get the remote, I can’t figure out the remote; 

and I imagine it is even harder for people in his situation. So I 

think we are all sympathetic. 

But it looks like this legislation, if push comes to shove, the industry probably, Mr. Snowden, can probably work some kind of 

compromise that is being done. Mr. Goldberg has just shown you 

here and there. 

But it seems like—Mr. Nakata, it appears that this legislation 

would—this private right of action is a stumbling block. That is the 

way I perceive your testimony. And you might tell me again why 

it is a disaster for the disability rights movement, that particular 

decision. Is it that the industry would be apt to not do it because 

of the private right of action? 

Now, we have a consumer protection bill that is going to be on 

the floor today. Tomorrow, we are having a conference with the 

Senate. And we have worked out language to work ourselves 

around this private right of action, and there has been consensus 

agreement on this. And I would be glad to share that language 

with you—my staff—because I think we can work through that. 

But just give us a little bit more nuance as to why this decision 

with Southwest Airlines is so detrimental to the disability rights 

movement. 

Mr. NAKATA. Thank you for that very good question. 

The Southwest Airlines decision was—it was bad because of the 

definition of what constitutes a place of public accommodation 

under Title III of the Americans With Disabilities Act. I think it 

was originally envisioned to incorporate things that were already 

existing in 1990, which is really bricks-and-mortar businesses. And 

then, as we all know, as time goes forward, now businesses—business really takes place in large measure over the Internet. 

I don’t think it is a great stretch to say that we should modernize 

our civil rights laws and our interpretation of the civil rights laws, 

like the Americans With Disabilities Act, to include online business, but we are still stuck with the language of the original ADA 

and the regulations, which seem to tie things down to a place. 

Mr. STEARNS. We are talking about updating the Americans With 

Disabilities Act, and you are saying, that is where it should be 

done. And if it could be done there, then that would be acceptable? 

Mr. NAKATA. No. It is a little bit more difficult than that. 

I think that we can interpret the current ADA to include online 

services. And the Justice Department had been making—— 

Mr. STEARNS. Including Sprint? Not just the Internet devices and 

the handheld, but also—the telephones too? 

Mr. NAKATA. No, not the telephones. The ADA encompasses 12 

distinct categories of places of public accommodation, which are 

really like private businesses—people that are open to the public, 

like service providers, gas stations, shopping stores, things like 

that. They are very broadly interpreted. 

67 

But telephone companies are more like utilities, unless you are 

going in to pay your bill, of course. Then that would be a place of 

public accommodation. It is very technical. 

But the point that I was trying to make, I think those places of 

public accommodation are really where most of American business 

takes place and I think really are the goods and service providers 

that most of us are looking for when we think about access to 

American business. And I think that the current Americans With 

Disabilities Act could be interpreted to include a lot of online services. 

The problem with the Southwest Airlines decision was that it is 

now being used to say, no, if you are an online business, you don’t 

have to do anything for people with disabilities, you don’t have to 

make your Web site successful. 

Mr. STEARNS. You are saying, right now the law could be interpreted that as much as these individuals are asking for access capability for these devices, the law could be interpreted that the industry does not have to provide it because of the Southwest Airlines decision? 

Is that what you are saying? 

Mr. NAKATA. Yes. A lot of private businesses are using Southwest Airlines for the position that they don’t have to—— 

Mr. STEARNS. So under the private right of action violation, if 

they went to court and sued, they couldn’t win because of the 

precedent established by that case? 

Mr. NAKATA. They would have difficulty, yes, because of—my 

point in raising the Southwest Airlines case is that if you—a private right of action—if I were in control of the world, and I could 

control every decision about what litigation went forward, everything would be fine in my perfect little world. 

The problem is that we can’t really control who is going to litigate over what. And then the Southwest Airlines case, Access Now, 

happened to choose very bad facts and a very bad forum, and they 

ended up with a very bad result. It then gets interpreted throughout the country by other courts for the proposition that Internet access doesn’t have to be provided for people who are blind. 

And that is tragic, in my opinion. And it was corrected to some 

extent by a district court opinion in California, the Target decision. 

But still, the Southwest Airlines case is always cited alongside Target. 

Mr. STEARNS. Thank you for that explanation. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MARKEY. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

The good thing, Mr. Nakata, is that you aren’t in front of the 

committee in charge of the whole world when it comes to telecommunications. So your testimony is very helpful to us in trying 

to find a remedy for each of these problems. 

The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Gonzalez. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

I guess I want to preface everything, what we are discussing 

here and the importance of it. And a lot of people look at the entertainment aspect of it. 

What we are really discussing here, and probably the need for 

this legislation, is how the world communicates today—that is 

68 

what is really before us—and leaving an entire segment of our society out of the progress that is being made and setting certain 

standards in the way that we communicate, not just the way we 

entertain, but everything that is predicated on that. 

If you really understand what we are trying to extend to all 

Americans—and that is, I believe, what Mr. Markey is attempting 

to do with this piece of legislation—so I want to start with the 

basic question about whether we need this legislation or not. 

It seems to me, Mr. Nakata, that the Southwest case may very 

well be an argument in favor of saying that this legislation is necessary, because if we have the technology and then the Southwest 

Airlines of this world are readily available to do things with their 

Web site and such, that would allow them to have complied with 

what formed the basis of the private lawsuit. Is that correct? 

Mr. NAKATA. Thank you for that question. 

Yes, I don’t disagree with the concept of this legislation. I do— 

I am fearful, though, that the private right of action as currently 

drafted, without any procedural safeguards, can eventually cause 

some problems. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. And I understand that. And I am a great believer 

in private causes of action, and I understand that we have frivolous 

lawsuits out there and such. 

But I also see many, many instances where it was a private 

cause of action that basically made advances across this Nation 

and obviously provided great opportunities for the underserved, the 

underrepresented, and so on. And we have to—I understand that 

maybe we should have some conditions, precedents and such, to 

safeguard against certain things. 

But sometimes government moves very slowly. Regulatory agencies are really no more than political extensions of who may be in 

the White House, and we have had plenty of examples of that in 

the past 8 years where they have not been watchdogs, where they 

have not promoted the public interest. I think sometimes the private cause of action is the only thing left out there to our citizens. 

Now, as far as the undue burden and such, the problem with 

readily achievable—and I am not saying that I am not open to 

looking at this. In your testimony under ADA, it is being defined 

as ‘‘easily accomplishable and able to be carried out without much 

difficulty or expense.’’ 

This is a different setting. What Mr. Markey is addressing here, 

as opposed to ADA, we are talking about technology. And I know 

that Mr. Snowden may want to go ahead and chime in when I finally get through here trying to pose this question. 

But don’t you think that we really are dealing with something 

entirely different? And I think that Mr. Goldberg hit on something 

here. Unless government spurs that kind of action and attention by 

the industry, it will not be addressed. 

Where the visually impaired or the hearing impaired person may 

be the beneficiary of—and they really are the unintended consequences of, let’s say, voice-to-text. Voice-to-text really—I mean, I 

see my lawyer friends sit there, and they impress me in the way 

they do it: let me show you how I am going to send this e-mail; 

let me show you how I am going to pull up this case; let me show 

you how I am going to dictate today. And they just talk into this. 

69 

Now, what is driving there is this private sector and this lawyer 

and other that may go ahead, and there is going to be a profit margin. But if this thing was really being driven by trying to address, 

let’s say, someone who is impaired, it wouldn’t happen. 

So how do we do this? So you do agree, then—I am hopeful that 

you agree—this piece of legislation is necessary to direct the industry in the proper direction? 

Mr. NAKATA. Personally, I very much believe that legislation like 

this is necessary. 

I don’t believe, though, that this undue burden standard is appropriate here. I don’t—it was developed in an entirely different 

context; and the way in which it has been interpreted by the Justice Department and by the courts sets a very, very high threshold. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. How do you address Mr. Goldberg’s concern that 

if you don’t have a significant segment of society out there to drive 

the profit margins, that it won’t be addressed? At least that is the 

way I interpreted what Mr. Goldberg said. 

Mr. NAKATA. Well, I think that there are certain other measures 

in the bill that I think are really great steps; for instance, making 

the process more transparent. I think that if there is a market failure under 255—and I am not sure that there really is, but if there 

is a market failure under 255—I don’t think it is because we use 

readily achievable or we should have used undue burden as a 

standard, we should have included a private right of action. 

I think that it really comes down to the fact that there isn’t very 

good communication between the industry and the disability rights 

community; that we have heard from—I believe my colleagues from 

industry when they say that they have made great efforts for improving the accessibility of their products, but I also certainly have 

heard for a very long time the voices of the people in the disability 

community say that that isn’t the case. 

Somewhere along the line, there is a middle ground; and I think 

that if you make the process more transparent, for instance, manufacturers provide information in a clearinghouse of information 

about the accessibility of their products, that goes a long way to 

helping people in the disability community understand what products are out there that really meet their needs. So it is a combination of those things. 

There are other steps that we could be taking, other than worrying about which legal standard we are going to hold people to or 

whether we are going to use a private right of action. There are 

lots of good things in this bill that are very positive steps, and I 

very much support those. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Snowden, I do want to give you an opportunity; I have a couple of minutes, but I just want to start with the basic question. We 

can work on the standard of undue burden. We can work on private 

causes of action. 

Bottom line, though, do you agree that this piece of legislation 

is necessary? 

Mr. SNOWDEN. I agree we should have some legislation. I think 

what we have offered in my testimony are some suggestions on 

how we can improve upon it, so therefore we would support it as 

we go forward. 

70 

When you look at the issue—when you couple private right of action and undue burden, that becomes a problem, and that is a concern for the wireless industry, particularly if you look at the various—the variety of disabilities that are out there. If you have the 

undue burden standard, that means everything will have to 

have—— 

Mr. GONZALEZ. And I am just saying, let’s put that aside and go 

with what we are really trying to get at. Why would it be necessary 

for the United States Government, through Mr. Markey’s piece of 

legislation, to direct the industry to address these needs? 

Mr. SNOWDEN. There would have to be market failure, for one. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. We are doing it. There must be a reason. We are 

trying to direct the industry that otherwise probably would not. 

And it goes back to what I think Mr. Goldberg pointed out. And 

I understand that. 

Look, you have got business models, and you have to survive at 

the end of day, and we are not going to do anything that is going 

to bankrupt you. But by the same token, you have to direct some 

of your assets and some of your effort to this entire population that 

we were talking about, that may not constitute an appropriate 

market share in the perfect business model. 

Mr. SNOWDEN. And I would offer that we are doing that, sir. 

One of the things that I have right here in front of me, a release 

from AT&T yesterday, who announced new accessory parts for the 

iPhone; and I have over 40 phones that are offered by the same 

company that are hearing aid compatible. That is being done. 

Our industry is not like some of the—when you look at undue 

burden, some of the bricks-and-mortars you are trying to build. 

Our business model is to sell product. If we can have products that 

are accessible, we sell more product. It is good for us, it is good for 

them. 

We want to sell more product. We have a vested interest in this 

and a pretty good track record. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. I yield back. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MARKEY. Thank you. Good questions. The gentleman’s time 

has expired. 

The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Shimkus. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I love this committee 

because technology moves faster than we can regulate. And usually, most times, that is to the benefit of all of us. So a lot of us 

carry around the new BlackBerry, and just because of the testimony, I wanted to see some stuff and I—so here we go. Call 911. 

911 works. Calling—I am sorry; I cut in. No, the reality is, it will 

ring. 

I have been working in the back room trying to do this voice 

activization stuff. A lot of people who are here know that I and 

Anna Eshoo and a lot of us have been involved in 911 issues for 

a long time, moving from—the former chairman, Chairman Tauzin, 

helped me move the first 911 bill for cellular communications. 911 

wasn’t the National phone number for cell phones. You would drive 

across State lines, and you would have a different number. So that 

shows you the power that public policy can do in public safety. 

71 

I don’t want to diminish the fact of what this industry has done 

for saving lives. And this is an example, if—especially if a phone 

was designed where it was just a push-to-talk and then the individual who was disabled, like the Sergeant Major, could say, ‘‘Call 

mom,’’ ‘‘Call dad,’’ ‘‘Call Susie.’’ Boom. 

And the technology is getting there. And that is important. It is 

also important—I shouldn’t say this in Washington, D.C., where 

you have got to have—you are not allowed to use cell phones, but 

if you have this push-to-talk, you can kind of keep it down low. No, 

I shouldn’t—that is, not that I have ever done that before. 

Mr. SNOWDEN. We have Bluetooth technology. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The other issue is, the Universal Service Fund has 

been mentioned. There are places in America where we still don’t 

have cell connections. So as we move to burdening—I don’t want 

to say—burdening is not the right—it is, where do we want our resources to go? 

Especially for the disabled in rural America, being able—and enhanced 911, which is another piece of legislation passed through 

this Committee, to be able to—identification and location of people 

who are injured and harmed so that—we all know the stories of the 

snowy mountain pass, and someone goes off the road, and they 

can’t be found. 

Senator Clinton mentions the story about the folks out in the 

rowboat off of New York, and they are calling, and they are calling, 

and they are calling, and they can’t be found because we didn’t 

have identification locations. That is what technology has done to 

help improve the standard of living and the life and safety of all 

of us. 

So sometimes I get frustrated because really we are all in this 

together. It is not good guys, bad guys. It is just moving us all forward, because technology improves the lives of everybody, and we 

really don’t want anyone left behind. And technology has made it 

possible for the disabled to have access that was undreamed of in 

the past. 

Now, this debate is the next iteration, which I appreciate. You 

learn a lot in this whole thing. I mean, I still want folks—I represent 30 counties in southern and rural Illinois; and I want to 

make sure that as the cell companies roll out new technologies and 

new services, that I get cell towers up and I get cell towers that 

can locate where my constituents are going off the road and can’t 

be found. And that is—we have just got to keep that in perspective, 

because that is a real National part of the debate. 

I am honored to have at the first panel, a sergeant major. Sergeant Major, I am a West Point graduate, a 5-year active Army infantryman, still have folks and friends deployed and will retire at 

the end of May with 28 years, 26 good years in the Army and the 

Army Reserve. So I am honored to have you here. 

Sergeant Major ACOSTA. Thank you. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. And we have seen the success of—I am sorry, Mr. 

Chairman, I did have questions, but I have filibustered. 

But we have seen the success of mainstreaming, getting our disabled veterans back with their disabilities, with great pride; and I 

appreciate you being here to help us remember those who are visVerDate Nov 24 2008 11:50 Apr 07, 2010 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00077 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCUMENTS AND SETTINGS\CWELLS1\HEARINGS\110-110 SCOM1 PsN: JIMC
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ually or hearing impaired also. So for those who wanted me to ask 

some questions, I missed it. 

So thank you. 

Mr. MARKEY. The gentleman’s time has expired. But Sergeant 

Major Acosta, if you would like to respond to Congressman Shimkus, I think we would like to hear your comments. 

Sergeant Major ACOSTA. Yes. On this demonstration you gave on 

the BlackBerry, I mean, without being a little facetious here, I 

would like to get a hold of it to see is it really accessible to me, 

number one. And you touch a very delicate subject in my new 

arena of being blind and going through all my trials and tribulations with my injuries, setting aside my blindness: the VA. We 

really need to work there; we definitely need to work there. 

I have acquired most of my schooling not through the VA. And 

this subject is not about the VA, but I had to go to a private school 

to learn how to be—learn the technology, what is accessible to me. 

And still, even in that school, they are years behind the times. 

But the BlackBerry, introduce it. I would love to see that work. 

But I bet you one thing, once I get a hold of it and I try to navigate 

through that, I am going to need some assistance. 

Because what I am trying to say here is that if you turn on the 

system, it should already be speaking to you, if you choose to have 

descriptive—a voice to you or not. But without that, it is not going 

to work for me. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. And, Sergeant Major, I appreciate those comments, 

and we need to follow up with the veterans, especially with handicap issues. And that is another committee, but we can talk to our 

colleagues on that. 

And I would ask—I think that the reality is, if we had a huge, 

one button, a push-to-talk system—and I don’t know if technology 

is there. But it is—I mean, I had to look—I understand that. 

But I think technology can get there, and we need to—instead of 

blaming, we need to continue to work together to solve these hurdles. And I think—I believe in innovation and technology and that 

we can get there. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MARKEY. I thank the gentleman. 

And for Sergeant Major Acosta, first he would have to be able to 

put in mom’s name, dad’s name, and Susie’s name and do that 

himself before he could use it, voice activated; and I don’t think he 

can do that. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Unless he worked with the Veterans Administration—— 

Mr. MARKEY. Hold on a second. 

I am just saying with the companies, if they made it easier for 

him to be able to input the information and then it had the audio 

capacity—all I am saying is, we could say to the companies, if you 

added these extra features, then Sergeant Major Acosta could use 

it like you do, a sighted person, because he would have been able 

to input other information as well that makes it easy for him to 

do it. 

The gentleman’s time has expired. 

The Chair recognizes the gentlelady from California, Ms. Capps. 

73 

Ms. CAPPS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I agree with Mr. Stearns 

that the two of you really brought together an excellent panel 

today. I really appreciated the testimony of each of you. 

I want to pick up on my colleague from Texas, Mr. Gonzalez, 

talking about—we are not talking simply about leisure time and 

entertainment, as valuable as those topics are. We are talking 

about lifesaving, we are talking about economic opportunity, we are 

talking about a whole range of issues. 

And Mr. Acosta, Sergeant Major—Sergeant Major Acosta, first of 

all, thank you so much for your service to the country. And I am 

just marvelling at what you have had to get used to, being sighted 

all your life, being injured in war and rehabilitation and all of the 

issues that you just discussed. 

I am not going to continue there, as interesting as that is. I am 

a nurse, and I would very much like to talk about those experiences with you. But I want to focus on where we both live, which 

is southern California. 

We are sort of disaster prone in our area. That is putting it lightly. And you talked about the earthquake just the other day. Can 

you—I want to expand a little bit about whether or not you have 

gone through the experience of being left out of emergency notifications. 

How is it to live there for you, particularly now, with the technology that is increasingly making such a huge gap between those 

with the use of all their senses to get all of this kind of instant 

rapid information and then the population that you now are a part 

of, who must certainly feel left behind? 

Sergeant Major ACOSTA. Thank you for the kind words, ma’am. 

Living in southern California, one of the best States in the Nation—— 

Ms. CAPPS. Well, yes. 

Sergeant Major ACOSTA. Thank you very much. And I will take 

the shake, rattle and roll anytime. 

But, you know, ma’am, still, with these laws that have been 

passed, it has been tremendous for some of us who are disabled, 

although—I have been educated for the past 2 years, but for my 

first 48 years I was not blind, and now that I have lost my sight, 

guess what? I see 20/20, clearly, what is going on around our Nation here when we—I say ‘‘we,’’ the blind community—has been left 

out. 

To answer your question as to what happens in a case of disaster, that is my answer, ma’am. There is nothing I can see on TV 

or get to a button to tell me what is going on. 

Ms. CAPPS. Let me—to anticipate how you are feeling, when we 

hear how bad the fire season is going to be this year in southern 

California, it must make you a little edgy to anticipate how you are 

going to behave when the evacuation plan is scrolled across the television and everybody is dashing around getting ready to evacuate, 

and you are kind of confused. 

Sergeant Major ACOSTA. Yes, ma’am. Well, you know, I stand a 

better chance swimming out in the ocean and people yelling there 

is a shark than trying to get the information from the TV or the 

radio. 

So, ma’am, it is going to be tough. 

74 

Ms. CAPPS. It is going to be tough. 

Sergeant Major ACOSTA. It is going to be tough. But I will endure 

whatever comes my way. I am an American. I am a warrior. I am 

never going to give up. This is going to be one of my new plights 

in life. 

Ms. CAPPS. I am so pleased that your leadership is so evident, 

and your ability to mobilize, I believe, is going to be very, very powerful within this new world that you are conquering. We just want 

to be able to help you as best we can. 

I will turn now—reluctantly, a little bit—to ask Mr. Snowden a 

question. You were eager to respond before. 

I want to find out from you whether CTIA or its members have 

considered adopting a universal design policy. And that would be, 

I understand, where devices are manufactured from the outset to 

include necessary accessibility features, rather than waiting until 

they are going to be challenged either in the courts or from a legislation that comes and then has to be added onto it. 

If you don’t use universal design, isn’t the end result a category 

of devices that are, quote-unquote, ‘‘good enough’’ for the folks with 

disabilities—barely good enough? How do we tell Mr. Acosta or Mr. 

Russell that they only get to choose from a select three or four of 

the hundreds of cell phone models available? 

Tell me a little bit about your industry’s response to universal 

design requirements. 

Mr. SNOWDEN. First, I would like to say to the Sergeant Major, 

the situation he had with the store was unfortunate in that—it is 

really unfortunate on two accounts. One is his personal experience, 

and the second one is, we lost an opportunity to keep a customer 

happy. And that particular issue, Sprint has phones that are—you 

can talk into and they will—voice dialing and—— 

Ms. CAPPS. Tell me a little bit about universal design, because 

I am already on the red light. 

Mr. SNOWDEN. No problem at all. Some companies have looked 

at this, particularly AT&T has a policy—if you go to their Web site, 

we can get you that information—on universal design. 

Ms. CAPPS. What is the policy? 

Mr. SNOWDEN. Actually, I will let AT&T speak to that versus me 

speaking to it, if that is OK with you, ma’am. 

But one of the challenges we have overall, when you look at universal design, is, do you make a single product for the deaf, hard 

of hearing, low vision, blind, deaf-blind, and cognitive consumer. Is 

there one product for that? 

One product that may be good for someone who is deaf may not 

be good for a consumer who is blind. And that is one of the challenges that we have as you look at the issue of universal design. 

As we go forward, we want to have products that can fit multiple 

consumers. No one consumer with a disability or without a disability wants a single type of product; they want multiple choices. 

I read to you a moment ago from this press release: there are over 

40 different HAC-compliant telephones. So that is more than just 

a few. That is not casting anything aside. That is a bevy of choices 

that consumers have. 

Ms. CAPPS. My time is up. I apologize. Thank you. 

Mr. MARKEY. The gentlelady’s time has expired. 

75 

The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Washington State, Mr. 

Inslee. 

Mr. INSLEE. Thank you. 

Mr. Nakata, you made reference to some possible procedural 

safeguards for private right of action. Could you elaborate on what 

you might refer to? 

Mr. NAKATA. I don’t necessarily advocate that we—that we follow 

any one of these. But I think there are different options that we 

can pursue. 

For instance, having an exhaustion of administrative remedies 

would enable the FCC, which has particular expertise on this issue, 

to vet the complaint or at least process a complaint, try to understand it before a person can just march into Federal court and sue 

any manufacturer. 

So that is a possibility. And I think that might make sense if 

there is a fairly short time limit that the FCC is given. So, that 

way, a plaintiff wouldn’t be denied his day in court. 

Mr. INSLEE. You have made some reference to the readily achievable standard as opposed to the undue burden language. I want to 

ask you how that would apply to the situation where we see frequently, where new business whiz-bang technology—much of it developed in my district, thankfully—great technology, but particularly in its early stages does not take into account access issues. 

We have seen that with DVI and HDMI, where we have seen a 

loss—you know, increased technology but decreased access. 

How would either of those two languages or other parts of this 

bill make sure that during the early stages of the design of these 

future technologies, we keep access without stifling innovation? 

Mr. NAKATA. That is a really good question. Thank you for asking that. 

Say a company is trying to release a product. There are lots of 

business decisions they have to make such as ship cycles and development cycles that go into whether they are going to release a 

product. It involves the—the difficulty that is involved are factors 

that are taken into consideration under both readily achievable and 

undue burden. It is more than just cost. 

But I would say that if the company were thinking about releasing a product and were looking at a readily achievable defense, the 

question then becomes, have they thought about accessibility? 

Have they put in place a plan to address accessibility? Have they 

assessed how much it is going to cost them in order to do it? How 

difficult is it going to be for them to do it? And how is that going 

to be phased into the development cycle, so that maybe it might not 

be in V1, but it might be in V1.01 or 1.2? 

So, by contrast, if it is an undue burden defense, it really is all 

or nothing once it is released, because you are looking at the way 

in which undue burden has been shaped by the interpretations of 

the Justice Department and the courts, it really is looking at the 

overall resources and whether it would create an impact on that— 

a substantial impact on those overall resources of the company. 

And if you are talking about a company, a large company, say, 

like Microsoft, that has—a multibillion dollar company, it can really be a show-stopper. And that is unfortunate to me because—to 

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what related to this—I think that there are areas of technology 

where they favor particular groups of people with disabilities. 

And I think one of the interesting examples is the BlackBerry— 

well, the predecessor of the BlackBerry, the alphanumeric pager or 

instant messaging technologies, both of which are really now so 

heavily used in the deaf community. And until fairly recently, those 

technologies were completely inaccessible to people who were blind, 

and they would probably not even come to market. 

Mr. INSLEE. Right. As we go through this, I just hope all of us 

who are not in the disability community realize that we are all just 

in the temporarily-abled community, too, as we go through this. 

That is the way I look at it. 

Sergeant Major, do you ski? Do you downhill ski? 

Sergeant Major ACOSTA. No, sir. I think if I tried it, I will injure 

myself some more. 

To be honest with you, I would love to do the luge, and everybody 

thinks I am crazy. That is the one where you lay down and go 100 

miles an hour. That’s me, sir. 

Mr. INSLEE. Well, if you are crazy, you have come to the right 

place, certainly. 

I just want to invite you up. My son works with a group called 

Outdoors for All, and they help blind, quadriplegic, everything you 

name, to ski and kayak and bike. Come on up to Washington State. 

We will set you up. You will be a luger or a downhill skier. 

We will talk when we are done here. I will get you up there. 

Sergeant Major ACOSTA. Thank you. Thank you. 

Mr. MARKEY. The gentleman’s time has expired. There is interest 

on the part of members to ask additional questions. This panel is 

so outstanding. 

So at this point, I will recognize once again the gentleman from 

Florida, Mr. Stearns. 

Mr. STEARNS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Snowden, you heard from Sergeant Major Acosta saying that 

the device for cell phones needs to be enabled, and you have heard 

from Mr. Anderson that his dad should be able to go on the Internet and be able to do video access to cable and television. Even at 

draft picks or things like that, his father wants to have the access. 

You heard Mr. Harvard talk about the remote control when he 

walks in. 

Is industry moving, in your opinion, to solve these three specific 

examples they have given today? 

Mr. SNOWDEN. I would say, yes, in some respects, particularly for 

the Sergeant Major, that issue has been solved. And we have devices now—I mentioned—Sprint has—all of the carriers have these 

devices that are made by Motorola and Nokia and all of our other 

members. So that issue has been taken care of. 

As we look through the closed-captioning issue that I know Mr. 

Goldberg has mentioned, we are working with the industry—the 

industry is working with Mr. Goldberg on this ICF, this forum that 

he is a part of, to work this aspect. 

In addition, we have worked through the U.S. Access Board and 

through the TEITAC advisory process on a lot of these issues. 

77 

So, ongoing conversations are happening right now to figure out, 

how do we move this from where we are today to where we want 

to be tomorrow. 

Mr. STEARNS. How long will it take where all three of these individuals, their problems are solved, so there is universal application 

to, wherever they go, they can get it? When do you think that will 

occur? 

Mr. SNOWDEN. I think if I had that answer, I would be in Vegas, 

not sitting here right now, with all due respect. 

Mr. STEARNS. Let me also ask you. The community has a Telecommunications, Electronic, and Information Technology Advisory 

Committee. Maybe you could talk about some of the efforts between 

industry and the disability community, how productive they have 

been, and maybe some of the things you are doing, so we can understand your efforts in this area. 

Mr. SNOWDEN. I can tell you that speaking on behalf of—I was 

a member of the Federal Advisory Committee. At times it was 

daunting, at times it was frustrating, at times it was exhilarating. 

But a lot of good work went into that, and the recommendation just 

went to the U.S. Access Board, I believe on April 3rd, for them to 

now take it from there. 

It was a good experience. It was a healthy experience. I think it 

was a fruitful experience for industry, for all aspects of the community to come together to figure out how do we work on these issues. 

I will tell you that I am always amazed by the doggedness of the 

disability community. There were e-mails flying at 3 and 4 o’clock 

in the morning on these various issues, because these are important issues. And I think as Mrs. Capps mentioned earlier, these 

aren’t just, ‘‘I want to watch a movie.’’ These are about jobs. This 

is about the economy. This is about making sure they are a successful part of our economic structure. That is why I think it is important, and that is why we took it seriously as well. 

Mr. STEARNS. I just conclude. I think your organization, you 

might want to contact Sprint and ask them to give him, the Sergeant Major here, the phone that he needs. If you are saying it is 

already capable and we have this capability, then he shouldn’t 

have had that experience, and perhaps they can contact and give 

him this capability. And likewise, if you see this capability for Mr. 

Harvard that they could provide that kind of service, too, as we follow up. 

Mr. SNOWDEN. I have given Mr. Harvard my card, and I will 

make sure I give it to Mr. Acosta as well. And I am sure someone 

is here in the audience from Sprint. His issue will be taken care 

of. 

Mr. STEARNS. Thank you. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Will the gentleman yield real quick? 

Mr. MARKEY. Sure. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. We would ask the Sergeant Major once he receives 

that, to give us feedback on if it works as advertised. Sergeant 

Major, you will do that, won’t you? 

Sergeant Major ACOSTA. Yes, sir. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. I know you are shy, but I have never known a Sergeant Major who has been shy. 

78 

Sergeant Major ACOSTA. Sir, I just want to be able to reach out 

and touch. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. So do we. 

Mr. MARKEY. Would the gentleman be interested in joining Sergeant Major Acosta in going down the luge? Would you be interested in that? 

Mr. SHIMKUS. If the Sergeant Major goes—officers always follow 

the senior enlisted men. Good officers always follow the enlisted 

men. 

Mr. MARKEY. I think we have a deal here. Let’s see if we can’t 

put this together. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The Chairman just wants to get rid of me for a 

couple of days. 

Mr. MARKEY. But not forever. So be safe. Be safe. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Gonzalez. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I appreciate the 

additional minutes. I did want to follow up with Sergeant Acosta. 

And Sergeant Acosta, I am from San Antonio. And, of course, we 

have got Fort Sam Houston, Brooke Army Medical Center, and the 

Center for the Intrepid, with which I know you are probably really 

familiar. And I was with Secretary Peak of Veterans Affairs, retired General Peak. And I can just tell you the sensitivity is out 

there on all of the issues about that you are pointing out. 

When we took the tour of the Center of the Intrepid—which by 

the way, was built with private funds, even though it is on Federal 

property and next to the Brooke Army Medical Center—in the tour 

itself, we actually went into a room where there was an Air Force 

sergeant and his wife, who was undergoing training by a representative from—I don’t remember which company—but it was really 

kind of voice-to-text. They had a computer there. They had a laptop 

and such. 

General Peak at that time expressed a great interest in, you 

know, who are you—the tutor—where are you from? I mean, are 

you Army, are you wherever? It really was private sector representative from another State representing a certain product and a service. So we know that is going out there—going on out there. 

Then General Peak also expressed a great interest in the transition that you were talking about, when that Air Force sergeant is 

separated from Active Duty. And what we are trying to do for him 

that we didn’t do for you—because you said no one at VA helped 

you with the technology and such. That is going on, but my fear 

is it is probably more on the private side, private property premises 

and so on. And General Peak was very interested about the transition. So I am going to bring your case to his attention and maybe 

put you all in contact so you can maybe express it in your own 

words. 

My only observation would be that I think what was being made 

available to that Air Force sergeant is probably pretty limited. And 

the purpose of this bill is to expand what would be available to everyone out there, including our men and women that are coming 

back, that are obviously suffering the injuries in the nature that 

you have experienced yourself. I just want to say thank you for 

your service. I don’t want you to think that the VA is not out there. 

I have known General Peak for a number of years. And as I have 

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said, I am definitely going to make your observation made known 

to him. And I wanted to share my experience wherein I have 

viewed actual training and preparation of someone who was blinded in Iraq. It may have been Afghanistan. I did not ask the sergeant. But, nevertheless, just to address that particular observation you made that we are trying and we just need to try a lot 

harder. 

Again, thank you for your service. And, Mr. Chairman, I yield 

back. 

Mr. MARKEY. Sergeant Major Acosta, would you like to respond 

to Congressman Gonzalez? 

Sergeant Major ACOSTA. Yes, sir. Thank you very much, sir, for 

addressing this. Yes, I have had my trials and tribulations. But 

what is good for me is good for the rest of my brothers and sisters 

coming home and even our past warriors who have served our Nation, to include those Vietnam vets, Korean vets and World War II 

vets who still want to be in touch with the outside. And I am talking about, of course, our blind community. We are growing. We are 

not shrinking whatsoever. But, please, keep me in touch, sir. I do 

appreciate that, because I have started my own advocacy called the 

TAV, which means Thank A Vet. You love your freedom, you thank 

a vet. Thank you. 

Mr. MARKEY. I thank you, Sergeant Major, very much. Mr. 

Nakata—the Chair will recognize himself for—does the gentleman 

from Illinois have any other questions? 

Mr. SHIMKUS. I just had a brief one. It was going to go to Mr. 

Nakata anyway. 

Mr. MARKEY. I will recognize the gentleman from Illinois. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Our real goal here, I 

think, is to facilitate the cooperation between industry and the disabilities community to solve access issues. In your opinion, how 

best can we do that? 

Mr. NAKATA. I think that what we have heard today is that there 

really is this big disconnect between the disability community and 

industry. There are products that our manufacturers are apparently developing, yet, people aren’t finding out about these things. 

And if there is some way in which we could provide a middle 

ground where we can have a clearinghouse for information that is 

proposed in the bill, I think that that would do wonders and would 

actually shed light on a lot of the good things that are being done 

and avoid a lot of these problems. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Chairman, that is really the last one I had. 

So I thank you. 

Mr. MARKEY. I thank the gentleman. By the way, I am going to 

ask a couple of questions here, and then I am going to ask each 

one of you to give us the 1 minute you want us to remember from 

your testimony. So think about that while I am asking a couple of 

questions right now, and we will come back to you for that. 

Mr. Nakata, just to clarify, you are saying that you believe the 

legislation is necessary, but you think that the private right of action may need procedural safeguards; is that correct? 

Mr. NAKATA. Yes. And the undue burden also is problematic. I 

am definitely in favor of legislation. As a former Justice Department attorney, I am very much in favor of that. 

80 

Mr. MARKEY. And would enforceable deadlines help, as Mr. Goldberg has testified? 

Mr. NAKATA. I think that they would, although I think you would 

have to consult with industry—— 

Mr. MARKEY. What I am saying, once we consult—— 

Mr. NAKATA. Yes, I think deadlines do help. 

Mr. MARKEY. But you have to have a deadline on consulting with 

industry, too, on creating a deadline, if you understand what I 

mean. There is really a chicken-and-egg problem there because you 

could drag out that whole process of creating the time for the deadline until eternity. 

[Whereupon, at 11:36 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

[Material submitted for inclusion in the record follows:] 

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN D. DINGELL

Today draft legislation will be examined seeking to modernize current laws governing access to communications for individuals with disabilities. The last time we 

enacted legislation concerning access for those with disabilities in 1996, television 

was only broadcast in analog and voice communications relied primarily on wireline 

phones. 

From a technological standpoint, the world has changed a great deal since then. 

The Internet now figures prominently in communications. Voice over Internet Protocol, or VOIP, service, texting, and instant messaging are just some of the new 

ways we communicate. Mobility and the use of data in communications are additional hallmarks of this new generation of services. One cannot walk down the hallways of this building without seeing someone texting on their BlackBerry. Similarly, 

the world of video programming has also evolved. We are in the midst of a transition to all-digital television. Content providers have discovered a new source of viewers and revenue by putting their content on the Internet. 

Though technology has rapidly evolved, our core values should remain constant. 

The principle of universal service has been part of our communications policy since 

the early part of the last century. In my view, however, service cannot be termed 

universal unless it can be accessed by all. It is necessary and proper that everyone 

has access to our communications infrastructure, including the next generation of 

communications and video programming. 

I am sure there will be lively discussions about the best way to ensure universal 

accessibility of communications. Our telecommunications industry, including service 

providers, manufacturers, and content providers, can each point to one or more applications or devices that contain accessibility features, and I am encouraged by 

these efforts. In my experience, if we simply ask the innovators and engineers to 

ensure that technologies are designed to include all persons, no matter how they 

communicate, they are up to the task. 

I welcome the witnesses who appear at this hearing. Thank you in advance for 

sharing your views on this draft legislation. I especially wish to commend Sergeant 

Major Acosta for his service to our country. Sgt. Maj. Acosta, his family, and countless others like him have sacrificed much for our Nation, and I am particularly interested in learning how this legislation can help him and others enjoy a fuller and 

more productive life. 

STATEMENT OF HON. EDOLPHUS TOWNS

Thank you, Chairman Markey and Ranking Member Stearns. I am very pleased 

that the Subcommittee is holding this hearing. Our constituents will be proud that 

we are looking for ways to improve access to new communications and media technology for Americans with disabilities. Universal access would expand markets and 

allow everyone to benefit from all the entertainment, educational, and health care 

rewards that the Internet has to offer. 

Because I have worked with the disabled community for a long time, I would like 

to congratulate the Chairman and Ranking Member for their dedication to the disabled and for their efforts at making this legislation a success. I welcome and thank 

the witnesses, because this hearing will provide important information for us to imVerDate Nov 24 2008 11:50 Apr 07, 2010 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00086 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCUMENTS AND SETTINGS\CWELLS1\HEARINGS\110-110 SCOM1 PsN: JIMC
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prove this bill. I have always believed that how well we address the needs of those 

with disabilities is a measure of our quality as a Nation. 

I would like to acknowledge the progress that the technology industry has made 

up to now to make their products accessible to those with disabilities, and I share 

their concerns about how to make this bill enforceable while still maintaining incentives for innovation. Thanks to innovative VOIP technology, we are now able to communicate around the globe with a combination of sign language over video, real-time 

text, and wide-band audio. Many companies are including accessibility packages as 

options on their products and offering help lines to assist with using their products. 

However, there is still a long way to go, and I am glad the industry is willing to 

work with the disabled community to make it happen. 

Thank you and I yield back the balance of my time. 

STATEMENT OF HON. ANNA G. ESHOO

Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this hearing to address important issues related to access to modern communications for all Americans. 

Our Subcommittee has discussed the idea of ‘‘openness’’ on several occasions. 

Openness can mean Net Neutrality, open access, competition, or accessibility. 

We can’t have a truly open Internet if it is not accessible to everyone. 

The rate of technological innovation has left some consumers behind, and this bill 

aims to bridge that divide. 

As a nation ,we’ve made important legal and policy decisions to make our workplaces, our communities, and our communications infrastructure accessible to all 

our citizens. 

I believe this draft is an important instrument to begin the dialogue on how best 

to pursue openness and accessibility for all consumers. 

I’m eager to listen to today’s witnesses and understand their perspectives on this 

bill, and I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this important hearing. 

STATEMENT OF HON. BART STUPAK

Thank you, Chairman Markey, for holding this hearing on the ‘‘Twenty-first Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2008.’’ 

I appreciate the Chairman bringing our attention to the unfulfilled needs of our 

deaf and blind community when using today’s telecommunications technologies. 

This legislation seeks to clarify any confusion on the responsibilities of the private 

sector to meet the needs of the hearing and visually impaired community. 

Obvious problems, such as a lack of effective captioning on the Internet, are often 

neglected as technology continues to rapidly grow and evolve. 

However, clear direction from the Federal Government on what standards the private sector should work to meet can address this. 

This legislation includes an important provision to update requirements for video 

programmers to continue to be integrated with the Emergency Alert System. 

Without a fully integrated video distribution system for emergency alerts, we run 

the risk of having a national alert that doesn’t reach millions of Americans. 

There is no good reason that the technology is too advanced to address the simple 

problems. Especially when dealing with the safety of the American people. 

It is important that clear rules are established to ensure accessibility as people 

begin to watch more of their TV on the Internet and other non-traditional sources. 

By providing clear direction from the Federal Government, new innovations by 

the industry can better meet the needs of the community. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you again for holding today’s hearing. I look forward to 

hearing from our witnesses on how we can better improve our telecommunications 

infrastructure to serve the deaf and blind community. 

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