While these laws are changing the political landscape for us, you should remember that ADA, and most of the other laws, didn't exist when we began. The field has exploded, both general and assistive technologies. There's more and it's more ubiquitous, more powerful, more necessary in our lives. Computers used to be the tool of the few nerds, away in labs, programming gleefully. Today, it's in the mainstream of American life.
Most families find a way to get a computer or get access to one at school or at work.
The tools are smarter, smaller, faster, cheaper, more powerful, more central to our lives, with no signs of a slowing its rapid development. The information age is transforming the way we work and live, and redefining the haves and have-nots in the most profound way we have ever known. Let me share an interesting fact which will, I think, demonstrate the point. June 19 commemorates the day in 1865 when slaves in Texas first learned that Abraham Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln actually signed the proclamation much earlier - in 1863.