American Bar Association - 1 click patents

[Adam Shostack]

On Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 02:48:07PM -0800, Tim May wrote:
| 
| At 2:08 PM -0500 2/28/01, Adam Shostack wrote:
| >So, this web page doesn't work without javascript.  I find that
| >somewhat ironic, because you'd think that the ABA would be aware of
| >the Americans With Disabilities act, which requires a reasonable
| >accomodation; in this case that accomodation would be one less line of
| >html (the meta-equiv refresh line)
| 
| The ADA does not require writers, whether lawyers or novelists or 
| whatever, to write their material in ways that the blind can read, 
| that retarded persons can understand, or that the Java-less can 
| process.
|
| (Though I admit that many of these rent-seeking vipers would of 
| course _like_ the ADA to be extended to cover such things, if only to 
| increase the rent they can collect in thousands of lawsuits.)

Actually, if they can do so with reasonable accommodation, I think it
does.  (Note that its not writers, but publishers, who I think may
have the "reasonable accommodation" requirement.)  Of course, the ADA
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/casecode/uscodes/42/chapters/126/toc.html
is not clear about this--it clearly covers transportation, hotels, and
the like, and services operated by private entities is not at all
clearly defined.

I'm not saying that thats a good thing, but given that the ABA
is a nest of those rent-seekers, having them on the receiving side
carries a certain poetry that I'm suprised you don't see.

Adam

-- 
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once."
					               -Hume