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> Section 508 requires your PDF to be accessible to users of assistive technology—like screen readers or Braille displays. Have people filed official complaint

by lake99 7y ago

> Section 508 requires your PDF to be accessible to users of assistive technology—like screen readers or Braille displays. Have people filed official complaints about this? I think once the complaint is official (instead of tweets) the department is obligated to respond to it.

rahimnathwani 7y ago
The site where the document is published (https://www.justice.gov/sco https://www.justice.gov/sco) shows the following message below the link to the PDF: "The Department recognizes that these documents may not yet be in an accessible format. If you have a disability and the format of any material on the site interferes with your ability to access some information, please email the Department of Justice webmaster. To enable us to respond in a manner that will be of most help to you, please indicate the nature of the accessibility problem, your preferred format (electronic format (ASCII, etc.), standard print, large print, etc.), the web address of the requested material, and your full contact information, so we can reach you if questions arise while fulfilling your request." I'm not sure what to make of the message. They don't say whether they'll send an ASCII version if you ask for it.
- jfoutz 7y ago
  is that how this works? throw up a disclaimer and i'm good? i mean, it's fine they are in a tough spot and can't put up an accessible version right now. but that should maybe be answered in court in a year. and people will go to jail if it's a cover up, or not if it was an honest mistake. The whole notion of 'i might stab you because i'm not good at knives' isn't really plausible to me. however, i'm totally willing to accept student drivers on the road, because everyone needs to learn _somehow_. Hopefully it's an honest mistake, or incompetence, and not anything sinister.
  - bumby 7y ago
    Unfortunately, this is a fairly common work around for govt sites. Same goes for designing a site for multiple browsers, just throw up a caveat that "site is best viewed in IE circa 2001" to avoid actually fixing the problem
- spdustin 7y ago
  I have yet to get anything back from them. Honestly, there is no good reason that born-digital content couldn’t get posted in digital/textual form rather than scanned pages. The secure redactions created by other software would’ve been preserved, too. It’s inexcusable, IMO, to just scan the damn thing.
  - diminoten 7y ago
    To be honest I bet they were scared the redacted sections would leak if they did it entirely digitally, due to ignorance of their own software. Not an excuse, but maybe an explanation.

by lake99 7y ago

rahimnathwani 7y ago

The site where the document is published (https://www.justice.gov/sco https://www.justice.gov/sco) shows the following message below the link to the PDF: "The Department recognizes that these documents may not yet be in an accessible format. If you have a disability and the format of any material on the site interferes with your ability to access some information, please email the Department of Justice webmaster. To enable us to respond in a manner that will be of most help to you, please indicate the nature of the accessibility problem, your preferred format (electronic format (ASCII, etc.), standard print, large print, etc.), the web address of the requested material, and your full contact information, so we can reach you if questions arise while fulfilling your request." I'm not sure what to make of the message. They don't say whether they'll send an ASCII version if you ask for it.

jfoutz 7y ago
is that how this works? throw up a disclaimer and i'm good? i mean, it's fine they are in a tough spot and can't put up an accessible version right now. but that should maybe be answered in court in a year. and people will go to jail if it's a cover up, or not if it was an honest mistake. The whole notion of 'i might stab you because i'm not good at knives' isn't really plausible to me. however, i'm totally willing to accept student drivers on the road, because everyone needs to learn _somehow_. Hopefully it's an honest mistake, or incompetence, and not anything sinister.
- bumby 7y ago
  Unfortunately, this is a fairly common work around for govt sites. Same goes for designing a site for multiple browsers, just throw up a caveat that "site is best viewed in IE circa 2001" to avoid actually fixing the problem
spdustin 7y ago
I have yet to get anything back from them. Honestly, there is no good reason that born-digital content couldn’t get posted in digital/textual form rather than scanned pages. The secure redactions created by other software would’ve been preserved, too. It’s inexcusable, IMO, to just scan the damn thing.
- diminoten 7y ago
  To be honest I bet they were scared the redacted sections would leak if they did it entirely digitally, due to ignorance of their own software. Not an excuse, but maybe an explanation.