[blindlaw] National Federation of the Blind CommentsonFederal Court Ruling on U.S. Currency

[Peter Donahue]

Hello Kathleen and listers,

    This story was on our local news this evening.The reporter said that the
U.S. Treasury was given 10 days to come up with a fix to making paper money
identifiable by us. I heard that and said, "It ain't  gonna happen."  The
Treasury Department will definitely file an appeal if they haven't done so
all ready.

Peter Donahue


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Kathleen Hagen" <khagen12 at earthlink.net>
To: "NFBnet Blind Law Mailing List" <blindlaw at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Wednesday, November 29, 2006 10:00 PM
Subject: Re: [blindlaw] National Federation of the Blind CommentsonFederal
Court Ruling on U.S. Currency


Steve, I agree that there are other things that are of importance.  I can't
imagine that this decision is going to stand anyway without appeals, and our
current Supreme Court will reverse it, be assured.  My problem was Mark's
pointed statement deliberately painting the ACB as people who want to be
pitied.  It would have been much more mature for him to have said that the
NFB thinks there are other issues of more importance to fight, such as
gaining employment.  He really didn't have to go further than that.  All
that's going to happen now is that ACB will come back with some sort of gibe
at the Target lawsuit, and we'll go on from there.  I'm sure this discussion
will go on for some
time, but this is my last comment on the issue.
Kathy Hagen

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steve Jacobson" <steve.jacobson at visi.com>
To: "NFBnet Blind Law Mailing List" <blindlaw at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Wednesday, November 29, 2006 9:47 PM
Subject: Re: [blindlaw] National Federation of the Blind Comments onFederal
Court Ruling on U.S. Currency


Where some of us come from on this issue is that after all of the money to
change the currency is spent, how much will it
truly change our lives?  I have to read the decision yet, but if all my
bills were completely identifiable, it would have had
very little effect on my life today or this week.  It has much less of an
effect on me than does computer software that
doesn't work right, public transportation that could be better, and many
other things.  This does not deal with the legal
aspect, but I feel sometimes that there is a segment of our community that
feels anything that we don't have because
we are blind is owed us by society.  I think we have to prioritize what we
request from society.

On Wed, 29 Nov 2006 18:31:37 -0500, Will Miller wrote:

>For what it's worth coming from a blind non-NFB member, I think this is a
>ridiculous, counterproductive, short-sighted  position for the NFB to take.
>It frustrates me that the article says that this is coming from the "voice
>of the blind". I haven't read, nor can I imagine, anything that would
>remotely justify an organization that advocates for the blind taking this
>position.

>----- Original Message ----- 
>From: "David Andrews" <dandrews at visi.com>
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>Sent: Wednesday, November 29, 2006 4:53 PM
>Subject: [blindlaw] National Federation of the Blind Comments on Federal
>Court Ruling on U.S. Currency


>         National Federation of the Blind Comments


>on Federal Court Ruling on U.S. Currency




>Views Effort as Dangerously Misguided



>Baltimore, Maryland (November 29, 2006): The
>National Federation of the Blind, the largest
>organization of blind persons in America and
>known as the voice of the nation's blind,
>criticized as dangerously misguided a federal
>court ruling saying that the design of U.S.
>currency discriminates against the blind.



>Dr. Marc Maurer, President of the National
>Federation of the Blind, said: "The blind need
>jobs and real opportunities to earn money, not
>feel-good gimmicks that misinform the public
>about our capabilities.  Blind people transact
>business with paper money every day.  This ruling
>puts a roadblock in the way of solving the real
>problem, which is the seventy percent
>unemployment rate among working-age blind
>Americans that severely limits our access to
>cash.  The ruling will do nothing to alleviate
>that situation; in fact, it seriously endangers
>the ability of the blind to get jobs and
>participate fully in society.  It argues that the
>blind cannot handle currency or documents in the
>workplace and that virtually everything must be
>modified for the use of the blind.  An employer
>who believes that every piece of printed material
>in the workplace must be specially designed so
>that the blind can read it will have a strong
>incentive not to hire a blind person."



>Maurer went on to enumerate the real needs for
>access to information by the blind and made a
>distinction between those needs and the issue of
>identifying currency.  "Access to information of
>all kinds, such as that contained on Internet Web
>sites and in the press, is certainly critical to
>the ability of the blind to become productive
>members of society.  Blind students need
>educational materials in Braille and other
>alternative formats so that they can prepare for
>employment and ultimately earn an income for
>themselves and their families.  Given the urgent
>need for access to the kind of information that
>is required for success in America's information
>economy, the matter of identifying the
>denominations of paper bills is of relatively little concern."



>Blind people traditionally identify paper
>currency by folding bills of different
>denominations in different ways.  "In reality,
>blind people do not routinely find that we have
>been short-changed," Maurer commented.  Machines
>are readily available to identify paper money for
>blind people who run businesses or handle large
>amounts of cash.  "Essentially, the United States
>Treasury has been ordered by the courts to come
>up with a solution for a nonexistent problem," Maurer said.



>The National Federation of the Blind believes
>that with training and opportunity, blind people
>can compete in the world with only minor
>modifications.  The American Council of the
>Blind, which brought the lawsuit against the
>United States Treasury, promotes the view that
>the blind are unable to compete unless the world
>is modified dramatically and specifically for
>blind people, and that the blind must be made
>objects of care and pity rather than equal participants in society.



>John G. Paré Jr.
>Director of Public Relations
>NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND
>1800 Johnson Street
>Baltimore, Maryland  21230
>Telephone:  (410) 659-9314, ext. 2371
>Cell phone:  (410) 913-3912
>Fax:  (410) 685-5653
>Email:  jpare at nfb.org




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