AP: U.S. appeals court rules that paper money discriminates against the blind.

AP ^ | 5/20/2008 | AP

[Red in Blue PA]

AP: U.S. appeals court rules that paper money discriminates against the blind. Breaking News on CNN

[Red in Blue PA]

This smells like the appeals court in CA.

[Eurale]

Yup. I;ll bet it’s the Ninth Circus.

[FMBass]

I can’t see how this is true.

[mrhansen]

Didn’t you watch the movie ‘Ray’? He had to get paid all in singles.

But seriously, I think it is quite hard on the blind. I mean, it would have to be.

Would you want to accept money from a cashier if you couldn’t see what they just gave you.

[Red in Blue PA]

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5ijDA5bgxiHlTvS_r-SSjskS1Tq1wD90PE1AO0

[NativeNewYorker]

[Red in Blue PA]

Using that logic, faux leather shoes discriminate too!

[Red in Blue PA]

Not to mention cubic zirconia.

[Carl from Marietta]

Don't prejudge this one. It would be so so easy to put braille identifiers on all bills, and legally speaking what they're not doing violates the fourteenth amendment.

[A Texan]

Baseball cards too.

[Red in Blue PA]

Wouldn’t braille identifiers wear over time?

[Carl from Marietta]

Wrong knee-jerk, faux leather shoes are not mandatory, however, try to get away with using another currency.

[Red in Blue PA]

And who is to stop someone from imitating the braille identifiers once they are in place? Just asking. I would love to make life easier for the blind, but in the end, the problem will remain, only in a different form IMO.

[mrhansen]

First of all, I can definitely tell the difference between genuine and faux leather. Who can’t?

Secondly, there is absolutely no feasible or pragmatic way for a blind person to tell what denominations are passing through his hands.

Would you like to be constantly forced to take the word of any random stranger when it came to your money?

[Carl from Marietta]

Braille identifiers do wear over time, but not as fast as the currency is taken out of circulation. Several countries have gone to identifiers for the blind, and it was almost no expense to do it. This is the subject of several documentaries on how currency is printed.

[Kirkwood]

Braille identifiers won’t work well. 1) they would get worn down in use, 2) it would be too easy to counterfeit the braille and cheat a blind person. Instead, blind people use money readers for paper currency and credit and debit cards.

[Bush_Democrat]

My big question is, “who still uses cash??”

[tlb]

>>>I can’t see how this is true.

I can understand the ruling. For several years I worked in a legal division at the state capitol. The first day at lunch I handed the cafeteria lady a banknote and a co-workers pointed at her own eyes, telling me this was a blind person. I had to tell the lunchlady the denomination.

It had never occurred to me before the problem the blind have with all banknotes seeming the same to the touch.

[Beagle8U]

“Wrong knee-jerk, faux leather shoes are not mandatory, however, try to get away with using another currency.”

What is stopping them from using coins?

[untenured]

Secondly, there is absolutely no feasible or pragmatic way for a blind person to tell what denominations are passing through his hands.

Not sure if you mean "using current money" or under any circumstances, but in some countries different denominations are different sizes, just as coins are here.

[mrhansen]

I dread the idea of living in a ‘cashless’ society. Would you really want EVERYTHING you purchase being scrutinized by whoever?

[Lurking in Kansas]

Why don't they just write a check?

Wait... oops... nevermind.

[rose]

All of you are so fortunate and cavalier. You have no clue as to blindness, I am forced into finding out as my 28yo grandson was run over by a Tahoe, dragged 60 feet and his brain and body bumped and beat horribly. He is recovering from brain injury and blind.
You have no clue as to how hard it is to get him help because of brain injury and blind too. There is help for brain injury but being blind throws a curve the same for being blind, brain injury handicaps you. So, no one really wants to deal with him.
It is difficult to tell money, to learn how to identify clothes, where you are, and on and on and on.
Just be thankful you can see and be so confident and cavalier.

[Kirkwood]

"Secondly, there is absolutely no feasible or pragmatic way for a blind person to tell what denominations are passing through his hands."

Money readers are available and they work for blind-deaf people as well.

[BubbaBasher]

Paper or coins is irrelevant. They still have to trust the cashier to tell them what the total is. They’re blind. I’m sorry. Get over it.

[muawiyah]

It would not be all that easy to put braille on paper money.

Sure, they'd go on there, but they'd be off in a few days of normal handling.

And imagine the counterfeiting opportunities. Take Ones, punch in Hundreds, pass them among the blind.

A thiefs dream ~ get rich by stealing, and plunder the handicapped.

What more could you want eh.

[Kirkwood]

Actually there are many, many services for the blind. Contact the National Federation for the Blind or your regional Lighthouse for the Blind office to get started.

[dalereed]

“Would you want to accept money from a cashier if you couldn’t see what they just gave you.”

Every bill has a different thickness (at least they did 30+ years ago) and the blind can learn to tell the difference by feel.

There used to be a blind man that ran a snack and candy stand in the enterance o a 13 story building in L.A.that could tell what bill you gave him and be able to make change.

I’ve seen people try to cheat him and they never got away with it, He would ask a 3rd person to verify what bill he had been given and he never missed.

[muawiyah]

Money in the US is subject to far more handling by machinery than foreign currencies. Braille will wear out in a few passes here.

[Schnucki]

It's not so obvious from the pictures, but they're all different sizes.

[muawiyah]

The first question a blind person must ask as he or she manipulates money is "is this money or is it something else".

It's much easier to counterfeit the feel of money than the look.

[King of Florida]

Here's the opinion:

http://pacer.cadc.uscourts.gov/common/opinions/200805/07-5063-1117127.pdf

(What's up with HTML links not happening?)

The opinion was written by Judith Rogers, a Clinton appointee. She was joined by Thomas Griffith, a GW Bush appointee. Dissenting was Arthur Raymond Randolph, a GHW Bush appointee.

Basically, the opinion affirms the district court's judgment that the current system violates the federal Rehabilitation Act. Treasury failed to show that the system could not be revamped to use different sized paper currency as is done in other countries.

Get ready for teeny tiny single dollar bills.

[SF Republican]

I would have thought the same, unless of course one actually reads the article before commenting. How much did you want to bet?

[SoCal Pubbie]

I am not opposed to having braille indicators on paper money, but IMHO this should be a matter of legislation or regulation, not the courts. By the same reasoning airlines discriminate against the blind by hiring pilots based on visual acuity. Are there braille panels below each street sign to allow blind pedestrians to navigate? Isn't that discrimination? What about retail packaging, or every piece of mail that's sent each day. There's no way for a blind person to know whether a piece of mail is misaddressed. Isn't all that discrimination too?

[Publius Valerius]

Take Ones, punch in Hundreds, pass them among the blind. A thiefs dream ~ get rich by stealing, and plunder the handicapped.

You've got to be pretty low down to steal from the blind. In my city, the state runs a blind school. At the blind school, they teach the blind all sorts of pretty practical stuff. One guy, who is a graduate of the blind school and an Indianapolis staple, always sells hand made brooms, usually on one particular street corner. About six or seven years ago, I bought a broom from him. I remember it well; it cost $17. I gave him a $20, told him so, and he gave me three singles in return. He kept the bills in different pockets--singles in one, fives in another, tens in still another, etc.

Anyhow, the local paper ran a human interest story on the guy and one of the questions they asked him was how often he got ripped off. He said almost never. He figured that most people just didn't have the heart to scam a blind guy.

Good broom, by the way.

[Tammy8]

So they should add braile to bills; it might have the added benefit of making it harder to counterfit. Dual purpose.

[Axenolith]

Hmmm... Just think, if it were still at a Constitutionally defined ratio of Gold and Silver, the blind could merely use coin for most transactions... (Italicized most because for really big ones they might need something like a notarized cashiers check.)

[AmericaUnited]

What’s next?! Requesting any amount of “money” over $100 discriminates against poor people?

[SoCal Pubbie]

Your sense of smell’s not good. It was Washington D.C.

[muawiyah]

So, who's being cavalier? It's not like many of us haven't been through periods of blindness, or loss of vision to the degree that we couldn't readily navigate curbs, count money, read a newspaper (or even the internet where we can toke up the text size), and so on.

I'm still having trouble with 3-D ~ my eyes are simply not reporting the world to me correctly, and may not ever do so.

Still, 2-D is better than nothing, or having eyes so sensitive to light that nothing can be seen.

There are, in fact, others here speaking from their own experience, or have worked with blind folks enough that they have a good understanding of what's going on.

[Red in Blue PA]

Other countries I have visited have different sized bills for different denominations. This would probably be the best route to go.

[rose]

You did not get what I was trying to relay. I know about all these organizations, etc. Being brain injured throws a huge curve. Your short term memory is shot to hell and back. Your long term memory is not lost but the short term is not there. How do you get him to remember what you just taught him? People do not like to deal with being blind and brain injured, and the people who specialize in brain injury do not like dealing with a brain injured blind person.
I know, we have been to hell and back. I have learned to be aggressive and demanding.
There are a lot of organizations, but they specialize, they are not set up to deal with multiplicity. My grandson-in-law was injured in Iraq, brain too. The army gives him a PDA to write down what he has done, and what his schedule is, no short term memory. He was injured in fall 2006, grandson was injured spring 2007. We are experienced the hard way in brain injury.

[muawiyah]

Indianapolis has one of America’s lower crime rates. Now, try that in downtown Detroit. Plenty of people there willing to scam the blind, or just beat ‘em up and take all their stuff anyway.

[muawiyah]

I've spent time in countries with different size bills. It's a pain in the tail.

They also have different colors, different pictures, and so on.

They have a reduced amount of mechanized money handling too.

There's really no reason we need to issue "currency" as paper. We could simply punch out $100 coins for example.

[rose]

I am very sorry you have problems with vision and very happy you can see.

[DLfromthedesert]

When I read the headline, I thought it was the Onion. The government cannot make everything equal for everyone. This is ridiculous.

[wallcrawlr]

Deaf/Hard of Hearing ping list
with interests in health and society

[Red in Blue PA]

I forgot about the different sized currency until I read this story. And I did like it alot. It makes it alot easier, ever for those who can see!

[Dante3]

My thought also. Radio discriminates against deaf people. Hollywood discriminates against fat people. The list goes on.