National Association of the Deaf

On May 26, 2010, Bobbie Beth Scoggins, president of the National Association of the Deaf (NAD), and deaf actor Russell Harvard testified at a hearing before the US Senate Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet on “Inclusion and Innovation:  the Americans with Disabilities Act at 20.”  Watch a captioned video of the hearing here.

Their testimonies, presented on behalf of the NAD and the Coalition of Organizations for Accessible Technology (COAT), focused on the “Equal Access to 21st Century Communications Act” (S. 3304) that was recently introduced in the U.S. Senate. S. 3304 is similar to the “Twenty-first Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act” (H.R. 3101) that was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2009. 

Senator Kerry, Chairman the Subcommittee said,

Twenty years after the passage of the ADA, it is time to recommit ourselves to ensuring Americans with disabilities are not left behind - online or off.  . . .  One of our central responsibilities as policymakers is to write rules and regulations to provide for access to essential services . . ..  And we believe that today access to the Internet and the ability to communicate over smart phones and computers is an essential service of the 21st century.

In her testimony, NAD President Bobbie Beth Scoggins said:

We are particularly pleased that S. 3304 includes provisions that
•    require caption decoder circuitry or display capability in all video programming devices;
•    extends closed captioning obligations to video programming distributed over the Internet; and
•    requires easy access to closed captions via remote control and on-screen menus. 

She asked Congress to make S. 3304 “the strongest possible legislation that will ensure that Americans with disabilities have access to the Internet and digital communications tools.”

Russell Harvard said:

The limitation of 13-inch screens has worn out its welcome.  Now all devices that receive or display video programming should be required to display captions.

We also need to make sure that we can actually figure out how to turn on the captions.  . . . [S. 3304] will enable viewers to control captioning features on the top tier of the on-screen menu.  It will also require video devices with remote controls to have a caption button.  Caption control is to us what volume control is to you. 

. . . We also need to make sure that the programs received by those devices actually contain captions.  . . . 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 need captions, are being denied access again.

Other witnesses at the hearing were:

The Honorable Edward Markey
U.S. House of Representatives

Sgt. Brian Pearce (Ret.)
U.S. Army

Mr. Thomas Wlodkowski
Accessibility Director
AOL Inc.

Mr. Walter McCormick
President and Chief Executive Officer
US Telecom Association