[blindlaw] American currency and other accessibility issues.

[Chris Danielsen]

Rod,

The difference between the two suits would be the relative need.  Bottom 
line, blind people can't access ATM's without them either being made 
accessible or us incurring considerable personal risk by asking someone to 
assist us.  By contrast, we can and do use currency.  We may, very 
occasionally, get cheated, but the fraud would be most likely for chump 
change rather than our whole bank account.  Nobody is saying that it's never 
appropriate to sue, the government or anyone else.  In fact, as far as I 
know NFB is still in litigation with E*Trade over its inaccessible ATM's. 
Same with Target over its Web site.  The question is, when the need is not 
as great and/or a less drastic course of action is available, isn't the 
responsible thing to do to take it?  I truly believe that when our causes 
are just, society will take our side, but we will quickly lose society's 
good will if we insist that, in effect, the world be modified in order to 
meet our every convenience.  It's a question of picking one's battles.

Chris

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Rod Alcidonis " <roddj12 at hotmail.com>
To: "'NFBnet Blind Law Mailing List'" <blindlaw at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Monday, December 04, 2006 12:27 AM
Subject: Re: [blindlaw] American currency and other accessibility issues.


> Joe, Dave's argument is that by changing the currency, the businesses will
> need to also alter their vending machines, etc etc etc, and that they will
> be mad at us. When we sue them to change their ATMS, aren't we suing 
> private
> businesses to alter their machines? I don't really see the difference
> between us suing a company to change their ATMS, and the court telling the
> government to change the currency, which would ultimately compel the
> companies to change their vending machines. I also wonder which is a more
> expensive thing to do? Changing ATMS or vending machines.
>
> Are we just afraid that the government won't do things for us in the 
> future?
> Or do we simply prefer to litigate when the government is not in the case.
>
> My understanding of the issue is that if I go out tomorrow and sue a store
> to change its vending machine because it is not accessible, it would be 
> the
> same exact thing, if I had gone out and sued Bank of America to make its
> ATMS more accessible. The only difference with the currency issue is that
> the order is directed to the government, and the government will need to 
> get
> these businesses to do what otherwise a law suit would have achieved when
> they ultimately comply with the order, which they must do.
>
> Rod
> From: blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
> Behalf of Joe Orozco
> Sent: Sunday, December 03, 2006 11:52 PM
> To: NFBnet Blind Law Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [blindlaw] American currency and other accessibility issues.
>
>    Come now Rod.  I appreciate the ironic comparison, but asking 
> businesses
>
> to make their ATM machines accessible affects only one sector of the
> industry.  It does not welcome the spillover effect of changing our
> currency.  If I had to prioritize between pushing for ATM accessibility 
> and
> currency modifications, I would totally buy into the ATM advocacy 
> regardless
>
> of which organization made the push, because while there may be isolated
> incidents of people getting short changed in cash, people would have more
> personal information and more assets to lose by asking strangers to assist
> with withdrawing from the bank.  Has the ACB made such an advocacy?  I
> honestly don't know, but if it has not, I see it as an example of the more
> ground breaking position the organization could have taken.  If it has, I
> think our own side needs to join in the noise to get something changed.
> Anyway, just my thoughts.
>
>          Joe Orozco
>
> "The more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in battle."--Military
> Basic Training
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Rod Alcidonis" <roddj12 at hotmail.com>
> To: "'NFBnet Blind Law Mailing List'" <blindlaw at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Sunday, December 03, 2006 11:27 PM
> Subject: Re: [blindlaw] American currency and other accessibility issues.
>
>
>> Joe, this would be against our policy, you have to adapt around the
>> inaccessible machines and be miserable, they shouldn't be made accessible
>> to
>> you buddy. You are asking the world for too much!
>>
>> Rod
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
>> Behalf Of Joshua E. Saunders
>> Sent: Sunday, December 03, 2006 8:24 PM
>> To: blindlaw at nfbnet.org
>> Subject: [blindlaw] American currency and other accessibility issues.
>>
>> I have been listening to the debate on both sides of the issue, with
>> regards
>> to currency accessibility.  The Federation has a point in that there 
>> could
>> be a backlash if the public comes to resent blind people for demanding 
>> too
>> many accommodations.  At the same time I don't think we should simply 
>> make
>> the assumption that that is the attitude most cited people will have.
>> Cited
>> people who I've talked to have seen it as a positive thing.  It's 
>> possible
>> that because I am blind they feel like they have to respond in this way.
>> I
>> haven't gotten any sense of deceptiveness in people's responses however.
>>
>>
>>
>> Since we have been talking about accessibility issues I wanted to raise
>> one
>> which I have been thinking about.  Touch screens are ubiquitous parts of
>> the
>> ATM machines at supermarkets.  There also present as a part of many other
>> common machines such as the automatic ticket machines for Amtra I found
>> myself in a very uncomfortable situation when I had to hand my credit 
>> card
>> to a total stranger in order to have my previously purchased ticket
>> extracted from the machine.  Now I simply do not by my tickets in 
>> advance,
>> so that I don't have to use the machine.  k.  I wanted people 's thoughts
>> on
>> whether we should work to have this technology made more accessible.  To
>> me
>> it seems just as important as making web sites accessible, because of how
>> common the technology has become.,
>>
>>
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