[accessibleimage] Judge: Government Must Make Bills Recognizable To Blind People

http://www.wral.com/money/10419803/detail.html
  Judge: Government Must Make Bills Recognizable To Blind People    POSTED: 
7:57 am EST November 29, 2006
  
  WASHINGTON -- The government discriminates against blind people by printing 
money that all looks and feels the same, a federal judge said Tuesday in a 
ruling that could change the face of American currency.   
U.S. District Judge James Robertson ordered the Treasury Department to come up 
with ways for the blind to tell bills apart. He said he wouldn't tell officials 
how to fix the problem, but he ordered them to begin working on it.   
The American Council of the Blind has proposed several options, including 
printing bills of differing sizes, adding embossed dots or foil to the paper or 
using raised ink.   
"Of the more than 180 countries that issue paper currency, only the United 
States prints bills that are identical in size and color in all their 
denominations," Robertson wrote. "More than 100 of the other issuers vary their 
bills in size according to denomination, and every other issuer includes at 
least some features that help the visually impaired."   
Government attorneys argued that forcing the Treasury Department to change the 
size of the bills or add texture would make it harder to prevent 
counterfeiting. Robertson was not swayed.   
"The fact that each of these features is currently used in other currencies 
suggests that, at least on the face of things, such accommodations are 
reasonable," he wrote.   
He said the government was violating the Rehabilitation Act, which prohibits 
discrimination on the basis of disability in government programs. The opinion 
came after a four-year legal fight.   
Electronic devices are available to help blind people differentiate between 
bills, but many complain that they are slow, expensive and unreliable. Visually 
impaired shoppers frequently rely on store clerks to help them.   
"It's just frankly unfair that blind people should have to rely on the good 
faith of people they have never met in knowing whether they've been given the 
correct change," said Jeffrey A. Lovitky, attorney for the plaintiffs in the 
lawsuit.   
Others have developed ways to cope with the similarly shaped bills. Melanie 
Brunson, a member of the American Council of the Blind, told the court that she 
folds her bills into different shapes: $1 bills stay straight, $5 bills are 
folded in half left to right, $10 bills in half top to bottom and $20 in 
quarters.   
The Treasury Department had no comment on the ruling Tuesday. The government 
has 10 days to decide whether to appeal.   
U.S. bills have not always been the same size. In 1929, the government 
standardized the size and shrank all bills by about 30 percent to lower 
manufacturing costs and help distinguish between genuine and counterfeit notes. 
  
Since then, the Treasury Department has worked to stay ahead of counterfeiters. 
Security threads and microprinting were introduced in 1990. The portraits were 
enlarged in 1996, and an infrared feature was added to encourage the 
development of electronic readers for the blind.   
The latest redesign is under way. New $10 bills, featuring splashes of orange, 
yellow and red, hit the market this year, following similar changes to the $20 
bill in 2003 and the $50 bill in 2004. The $5 facelift is due in 2008.   
In court documents, government attorneys said changing the way money feels 
would be expensive. Cost estimates ranged from $75 million in equipment 
upgrades and $9 million annual expenses for punching holes in bills to $178 
million in one-time charges and $50 million annual expenses for printing bills 
of varying sizes.   
Any change to the dollar's design could ripple into the vending machine 
industry, which participated in discussions regarding previous redesigns. The 
American Council of the Blind is not seeking changes to the $1 bill, according 
to court documents.   
The Treasury Department spent $4.2 billion on printing over the past decade, 
Robertson said. Adding a raised number to the bills would have increased costs 
less than 5 percent over that period, he said.   
"If additional savings could be gained by incorporating the new feature into a 
larger redesign, such as those that took place in 1996 or 2004, the total 
burden of adding such a feature would be even smaller," Robertson wrote.     
Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may 
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