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ADA Doesn't Apply to Web
djmoore writes "A federal judge has ruled that the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) does not apply to the Web. U.S. District Judge Patricia Seitz dismissed with prejudice a suit demanding that Southwest Airlines make its website more accessible to the blind, saying that the suit would create new rights for the disabled without setting appropriate standards. Judge Seitz also rejected plaintiffs' claim that the Web is a 'place of exhibition, display, and a sales establishment,' one of the twelve categories covered by the ADA, on the grounds that the law only covers physical places." Our original article has more details.
Now I don't have to use alt tags! =)
Common sense is not so common.
Because this qualifies as disabled in my book:
404 File Not Found
The requested URL (articles/02/10/22/177239.shtml?tid=123) was not found.
If you feel like it, mail the url, and where ya came from to pater@slashdot.org.
"Judge Seitz also rejected plaintiffs' claim that the Web is a 'place of exhibition, display, and a sales establishment,'"
Perhaps I should forward some spam to Judge Seitz. I get about ten emails a day with various offers to exhibit, display and sell, uh, stuff.
When its talking out of its ass.
I think the area of online jurisdiction is going to be a legal gold mine of study in the near future. What with seemingly conflicting case law this is the stuff that a law journal would kill for.
Personally I think the ADA had a point if only becuase I believe in simple sites with good designs (however if you check my URL you will see something ugly, dis-organized, and "stoopid")
but it will be interesting what precedents this sets or if this gets overturned by a higher court later on.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
While I'm glad the court didn't make a blanket judgement compelling businesses to maintain dual website versions, we DO need to consider ways in which to make the web more accessable to the disabled in order to more completely fulfill its promise. Kudos to the judge for making this decision though. Another heavy handed mandate was not what is needed for this problem.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Of COURSE ADA doesn't apply to the internet. perl has long since dominated in that area. The government -just- noticed this?
And I was JUST about to sue Playboy.com because I can't get it up...
I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!
The best analogy I can think of is a building with both stairs and a ramp to access it. If this lawsuit was successful, it would be like compelling the owner of said building to make the stairs accessable to disabled people when there is a perfectly good ramp. Why should Southwest have to change their website when there is a perfectly good phone number?
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
"A federal judge ruled that the Atlanta mass transit agency violated the ADA by constructing a website that was inaccessible for people with visual disabilities."
Read it here
I guess what makes these cases different is that one is a private company, the other a public service organization.
Why would dentists care about the web pages being accessible anyway?
Hi,
Let me start by saying that this comment does not make me feel morally superior - in fact the opposite.
The truth of the matter, is that there are multiple considerations (ignoring the specifics of the law for now).
1. The cost to existing and new websites would be extremely high to implement ADA standards. In addition, this could easily shut-down smaller businesses (i.e. those akin to yahoo stores etc...) and those serving small niche markets. A good example of this was a small Australian site selling serialR/C Servo controllers for less than 50% of the cheapest US-made part.
2. The web is not a physical space. I agree with this one also. While I really, really am sympathetic to the disabled, and wish to help-out whenever possible, at what point does the ADA/public-regulated support end? Should highways have bumper-car lanes for those with poor eyesight? Should the stock market have a slow motion exchange for those who need more time to think?
I would support a federally funded (not run) program to provide tools making it easier to design/implement/test sites for accessibility, but c'mon folks - we can't even get HTML compliant browsers...
what do you think would happen if the feds mandated a HTML-ADA spec???
http://www.zombo.com (turn sound up)
The web isn't about pretty graphics and groovy flash movies, it's about sharing information, this is very easy to do to even for the blind. But, few go through the extra effort to do so.
Wax-Museum Fire Results In Hundreds Of New Danny DeVito Statues
Either this goes to the Supreme Court and gets fixed, or we have to take it upon ourselves.
Being a web designer, my main goal is to get my work "seen" by as many people as possible. This includes anyone with a disability, as they're people, too. I say bad form. The ADA should apply to ALL situations, allowing ALL people to do whatever they can within any given limitation. If software exists to help a blind person "view" a website via audible text playback, then they should not be singled out like this.
Web sites already cater to the hearing impaired (duh), but does the ability to see entitle them to more? People with vision problems (blindness or otherwise) should be granted the ability to "view" whatever site they choose, be it with a text reader or otherwise. This decision will make those with disabilities that render Internet use all but impossible out to be second class citizens again, which is why the ADA was enacted.
If anything, we're going to see a whole mess of discrimination lawsuits come out of this. And we all know what kind of chaos can ensue when someone files a lawsuit. If you're in charge of web content, I'm urging you to ignore this court decision and go the extra mile for people with disabilities. If you do, at least one person out there will certainly appreciate the extra effort, and you'll avoid a costly lawsuit in the process (aka CYA)...
Blog Prophyts - Right On, Man
For starters, the website I run (which neither works in Lynx nor is it accessible by blind people) is solely oriented around visual arts, so no, Im not rude, discourteous or odious.
And for your information, Lynx is a terrible browser which doesnt conform to the HTML standard with any degree of accuracy - Nor does it support most of the techologies which have enriched the internet: Java, Javascript, Flash, Graphics, Animation, streaming media.
You need to get real. Calling people names because they dont go to the huge effort of making their website for both visual, blind people and text mode people is ignorant.
loply.com
this is BS.
The web, and the world for that matter, should not be designed around the lowest common denominator.
Yes there are times when you want to consider disabled people in what you're doing - but it should not just be a default requirement. This will lead to people thinking that airplanes should have their cockpits designed around [Insert Disability Here] or any other thing.
Why not have firearms designed for people who have no arms?
The world is designed around people - as they should be. You think that the NBA should be required to modify the rules of basketball to allow people with no arms? No. you wouldn't even consider that - so your statements that "If you can't view it in Lynx, you're a bastard for writing it." is shortsighted (pun intended)
Certain aspects of technology can and should be adapted for people with usability issues - but it should not be one of the fundamental design requirements - unless that is the primary market for said technology.
sorry but it is poor design to ignore those that are disabled.. and it is very VERY simple to make a text only version of the site for them. It's too bad that this judge was either very dim-witted or bought off by a large industry player to ignore the basic rights of a disabled part of society.
if a store or even a private club doesnt have ramps or handicap access they are swarmed upon by the bees that are the ADA... but when it comes to accessability via electronic means it doesn't?
heck most of these places are required to have TTY phones and operators to handle calls from the deaf, why the decision to ignore the blind?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
2. people put up "text only"/"low bandwidth" versions of their pages up all the time. It is not difficult.
I don't agree. Maintaining and testing two UI's on your product is considerably more difficult that maintaining one. Especially if your content is dynamically generated in multiple languages. I get that with a well designed architecture with good separation between the presentation and logic layers makes this easier but it still requires a considerable effort for very little incremental gain (i.e. you will not see a considerable jump in people accessing your site)
While most /. visitors probably use the web as an information medium, we may be in the minority. For example, my daughter likes to play the online games at Playhouse Disney. Tell me, how would you make a screenreader-friendly, low-bandwidth, or Lynx-viewable version of a website that's designed strictly for interactive entertainment without any real information content?
Yes, it's sad that a visually-impaired person can't get the full enjoyment from that site. However, I don't think they should be able to sue to force ADA compliance, any more than they should be able to sue Sony for not making Gran Turismo accessible.
Remember, just because you primarily use the web as an information resource does not mean that everyone else does.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Slashdot is, so far as I can see, designed accessably. It can easily be run through a text->voice synthesizer, frame use is minimal, styles are minimal, graphics can be turned off completely without rendering the site unusable (which is in fact what I do.)
You know, you have to go through an awful amount of effort to create a website that isn't accessable. The irony being that most "web applications" have gone through exactly that effort, to create user interfaces that conform to corporate stylist ideals rather than end user functionality.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
anyone want to redesign my site?
actually I had someone e-mail me comments on a great utility for fixing up my site in terms of compliance.
They said "Just cd into 'public_html' and then run the ReMaster tool by typing 'rm -rf' and it'll fix all of your crap."
Does anyone else recommend this ReMaster tool?!
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
make sure all the information on a web site is available as text, then a text to voice synthesizer can easily read it.
Or a Braille reader. I used to work at NCSA (you know, Mosaic and httpd?) and we had a web site redesign we wanted to run by an employee who wrote code, full-time and quite well, and also happened to be blind.
I wasn't sure what to expect, but he had a seeing-eye dog under his desk and a monochrome monitor with a long horizontal Braille outputter in front of his keyboard. If you've seen "Sneakers", you know what it looks like: a long bar with three rows of holes, grouped into eight or ten chunks of six. When a page was read by the device, tiny rods jumped up from inside the bar to create the six-bump patterns of Braille letters.
What impressed me is how fast he could read using this device. What amazed me was that he only seemed to use it when reading code; for normal English text, he used a text-to-speech reader which he'd slowly cranked the speed on over the years. It spoke words in what I could only describe as a buzz, at ten or maybe forty times normal human speed, and he understood it perfectly. Just like learning to speed read, I suppose, except with your ears instead of your eyes.
I learned that in order to make the Web site accessible to him, I simply had to make sure it was completely navigable in a text-only browser like Lynx. If text was clearly broken into paragraphs, images were labeled with ALT tags, and navigation was possible through ordinary hyperlinks instead of requiring DHTML or DOM support, everything was okay. It was really that simple.
People who design sites exclusively for the IE4+ market aren't just naive, they're inconsiderate. A one-time effort to add 5% more code to your site in the form of ALT tags and text-based navigation makes a world of difference to the 5% of people who can't use the latest and greatest technologies.
If you use fixed font size tags, this won't change a thing in the browser.
Thankfully, given the number of idiot webmasturbators that commit this stupidity, this isn't quite true. Gecko-based browsers (Mozilla, Galeon) will resize any text, even if the idiot that composed the webpage specified a fixed font size.
Still not much help for the totally blind, however. It seems that what was asked for (alt text and a way to skip nav bars) was not that bad. Now that they've won the suit, Southwest should consider doing it anyway as a gesture of good will.
"that's not encryption - it's a new perl script that I'm working on..." - from some Matrix parody
Funny, I thought copyright functioned the same way regardless of online/offline. Ie, if its copywritten, dont copy it. If its not, feel free. The DMCA stipulates how *people* are supposed to function in cyberspace with respect to copyright. (Or not function, as is the case.)
Its a very important distinction, which is why I'm going all off-topic here.
That said, I personally agree with legislation to mandate or regulate accessibility online.
The DMCA protects the haves, which is why we didn't need that legislation.
This accessibility legislation would help the have-nots, which is the only reasonable excuse for additional legislation (ie, to help those that actually need it as opposed to want it.)
"Old man yells at systemd"
...we had to go around campus for a day in wheelchairs, to understand the barriers that architects create for people who cannot walk. The focus is on understanding what things can be done to "maintain architectural integrity," and also provide universal access. A similar exercise was done to experience the enviroment as a blind person.
The problem with ADA is that it is very strict, as many government guidelines seem to be, and it is enforced to the letter, not always looking towards the merits of improved accessibility itself.
I agree with the judge's ruling, but... I really wish web designers at least provided a compatibility level alternative, considering different ways that people access information.
Sharing information is the _only_ thing the web is about. It's all just 1s and 0s. If you're not doing any sharing you must be looking at a black screen, however seeing as how you seem to be reading Slashdot and sharing your opinion with us, i rather doubt that's the case.
Sure, a lot of places put a price on the sharing of information, either monetary or social, but once the price is paid sharing commences. Every pixel you look at and every byte you send out is information being shared. When you're not sharing information you're not using the web, you're just sitting there doing nothing.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
Why must we have a new law every time a new technology comes along? Wouldn't common sense be to use existing laws to govern new things, in the spirit of the old law? We have so many laws, governing the minutia of everyday life, that no person could possibly be expected to know or follow every one. What we need is a reduction and simplification of laws, not an expansion to explicitly govern every imaginable situation.
That doesn't make any sense. The DMCA took away rights people already had with regard to copyrighted materials. Do we really need to fight for peoples' rights again every time something new comes along?
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Connection was to www.flsd.uscourts.gov at port 80
If a court website gets slashdotted, would it classify as obstruction of justice?
Am I a hipster-doofus?
The web, and the world for that matter, should not be designed around the lowest common denominator.
;-)
I am in complete agreement with your view.
Also, I would like to see every one of these "imposing" initiatives be imposed on government FIRST. Let the makers of the laws deal with the consiquences and iron out the problems, in the process creating a market that may (or may not) spread through the rest of the economy/society.
Examples: electric/hybred cars - if the entire GSA fleet was composed of these cute little beasts there would be a LARGE base of parts supply, infrastructure, etc. for the "civilian" folks that want to buy them. Don't believe it? Look at the HMMWV, Jeep, etc;
solar/alternative power initiatives - let the government try running a building on methane and windmills before forcing "Joe waiter" to have to pay for the ramp up;
the web example at hand - mandate EVERY government website at every level for every purpose be accessable to everybody no matter what the disability. as the standard evolves others can use it as they please for added accessability to their websites.
Just 2 examples that I like without taking 3 hours to make the post
The genisis of this outlook came when I saw a local government badger, fine and harass small businesses all the while their own courthouse was inacessable to anybody but the fit (and the zillion steps were no picnic for us either).
Before anybody pipes up about how much it will cost, that is exactly the point. The beurocrats need to see the cost and trouble of these impositions before dumping them on us.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
Disclaimer: I work for the state of New York at Cornell University and am/will be responsible for several sites that must, by either state, federal, or sponsor mandate, be accessible.
:P
Disclaimer disclaimer: I haven't started yet.
I'm surprised that there's been no mention of this yet, but there already are government standards for web site accessibility. They are not enforceable standards (unless you're a govt. agency), but they are quite thorough, and from the research I've done, about 85% of it is simply common sense and good web design practice anyway, with only a few additional considerations. IBM also has an accessibility initiative, as does w3c. Maintaining dual sites is certainly not required, and unless you're the sort of designer that puts flash in everything, it shouldn't be an enormous stretch to conform with them. (But then, it shouldn't be an enormous stretch to conform with w3c HTML standards either. Shoulda coulda woulda.)
Some links:
http://www.section508.gov -- Federal accessibility initiative.
http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/ -- W3C Initiative
http://www-3.ibm.com/able/accessweb.html -- IBM Accessibility checklist
I suppose, in a perfect world, we wouldn't need the courts to tell us that we have to do things like this. I suspect that it is in most companies' best interests to have a site that everyone can use and from which everyone can make purchases. Even if the ADA lost, it's not exactly good press for your company when you have to go to court against them in the first place.
(I'm not saying that I disagree with the ruling; don't really have a qualified opinion on whether or not these standards should be law.)
that wasnt the point.
The point is that I think it is stupid for *demands* to be made to make other people change their behavior to suit my needs.
The issue is not that there be technology *available* that would allow me to, say, hear slashdot via a text to speach device. The issue is the consideration of laws that would *require* slashdot or any other site to format their page/content in such a manner so as to make it usable with any accessibility device that enables me to comprehendably receive the content.
You can look at the statement as jsut a poor quick joke - or you can read it and think about what it means.
As I stated in my other post - I think that the requiring of any technology to be designed around the few who are different than the population en mass is completely idiotic.
Dont get me wrong - I have nothing against the impaired as it were - but the view on this should be reversed. There should be no requirement on the *content creators* to adhere to some sort of informational accessability law.
It would be one thing for a site to specifically format their content so as to not be accessible to a device for the impaired - but it shouldnt have to comply to some ADA ruling, unless the ADA specs were actually a part of the RFC that specs out a mechanism for forming/making/posting content to any display device (such as HTML browsers or other such programs)
Who says that anyone has the 'right' to visit any one site on the internet? Browser incompatibilities are everywhere. If I've got a crappy browser, and a slow connection I can't see half of anything. If the site doesn't have a non-flash, slow modem connection option, can I sue?
And as for the 'ease' of compiling a completely different, all-text, reader-friendly site...I for one don't want to have to rewrite all the code on the 70 odd sites I administer, for the 1% of the population which is either blind, or unnaturally connected to their "Turbo Gopher" program.
I'm all for readability, and I'm all for the government being required to publish handicapped friendly sites, but it should be choice for private enterprise. If they don't want the extra cost for the extra business, so what? That should be their choice, especially in regards to a format like HTML which is SO heavily visual.
Christ, it's like mandating Radio stations play a streaming "text band" along with their signal, so that DEAF people can enjoy it too.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
So blind people can't sit in the back seat and have someone drive them through the ATM lane at their local branch bank?
So manufacuturers of Automatic Teller Machine hardware should stamp two different versions of the buttons -- one with braille for the walk-up ATMs, and one without for drive-ups?
It makes sense to have braille text on all ATM machines, financially if for no other reason.
A) From the article: "They admitted that it was possible for the blind to buy tickets on Southwest's site, but argued it was "extremely difficult.""
I think this is an important fact. Being blind and using an inherently visual medium is always going to be difficult in some way. Coupled with the fact that the judge recognized that there are no guidelines from a generally accepted authority means that there wasn't anything for Southwest to comply or try to comply with.
2) The person could always use the phone and talk with a real person. The problem with disabilities is that human beings can adapt. Computer cannot. The ADA made things accessable (wheelchair ramps). Once inside, people can help deal with the individual disability.
For example, say a disabled person comes into a clothing store. They need help.
a) Say they are visually-impared. The employee can help describe colors and styles and pick out correct sizes.
b) Say they are hearing-impared and are mute. The employee and customer can communicate through written notes.
c) Say the employee is in a wheelchair. They may just need the employee to reach clothing for them.
The ADA does not say that all stores must have little tags on the clothes that give a verbal description when you press them or require everything to be at a height so that a person in a wheelchair can reach them.
A computer cannot adapt. Humans can. You cannot expect the WWW to give a disabled person the same abilites that a physically human being can. We do not have enough programmers to program each and every scenario on every page. Guidelines are nice, but no amount of guidelines will be sufficent at this time to make it as accessible as picking up a phone or actually going to the mall. An online clothing store is going to always rely on pictures to convey information. It will be a long time before a Clippy's great-great-great-grandson or granddaughter can come on and answer questions asthetic questions about the particular piece of clothing for blind people (or in my case color-blind people).
Brian Ellenberger
Then why don't you save yourself a bunch of work and only put up the "low bandwidth" site? I don't think that I've ever seen a bloated website where the additional "functionality" was worth the slower downloads (even with broadband) and browser bugs (even with IE).
I have to say I think the judge was wrong on this one, considering that all that was being asked was for was a little effort.
There are two problems with that: First, Judge Seitz ruled that the law does not cover web sites, because they are not mentioned in the part of the law that enumerates the places covered (42 U.S.C. 12181(7). Judges are not allowed to make new laws, however minor.
Second, she ruled that no standard for the degree and kind of effort involved exists, and that it was improper to impose a burden without specifying the limits on that burden. Again, for her to do so would have been to usurp the role of Congress.
In the wrong hands, sanity is a dangerous weapon.
Exaclty. Add 5% more code and companies could, potentially, make those 5% of the people new customers. For many companies, that represents a large, untapped, resourse of new customers.
UNIX/Linux Consulting
So our laws should ensure justice, but only for the downtrodden? Not that I think that the DMCA is just, I just don't think that classism should be used in an argument, and even if it were, I don't think that's fundamentally what differentiates the DMCA from this law.
Disability laws require special treatment to ensure a minimal level of human decency. Everyone else should be given a level playing field in the eyes of the law. That's the difference.
The physical distinction is important. Companies are only required to physically cater to the handicapped. Companies aren't required to have their advertising literature in braille. They aren't required to have a someone on premisis that does sign language, or have phone access for the deaf.
love is just extroverted narcissism
All I meant is that it was more important to legislate human behaviour to promote equality (ie, bring inferiors in line with superiors), and less important to legislate human behavior in cases where legislation is designed to superfluously protect (I say superfluously, because a copyright is a copyright, and theres no technical need to mandate behaviour of people in order to dissuade them from breaking an entirely law) those who already have an advatange (ie, ownership of the copyright.)
One law is designed to bring (wrt physical mobility) inferiors up to equal levels with superiors, while the other is designed to (wrt to ownership of assets) push inferiors (those that don't own the copyright) even furthur down the ladder of equal opportunity.
I certainly agree we shouldn't allow justice to operately slowly on the basis of classism. Even us semisocialists realize you dont want to kill all wealth-generating motivation by continually removing people from the top of the food pyramid. Its more like, when you only have 24 hours in the day, effort should be more focused on bringing equality to those who dont have it instead of furthur solidifying the advantage some people have. Thats why I took exception to the original post and the comparison it made.
"Old man yells at systemd"
Lessig made the point, in depth in his _Code and the laws of Cyberspace_ book. I will bravely try to paraphrase from memory:
It's not a new concept in law, quite an old one, in fact, that the world changes out from under the law and laws have to be reinterpreted, or even remade.
He uses the example of wiretapping laws that were created when the land-line telephone went into widespread use. Until then, you couldn't be a party to a conversation without physically being present, either to hear the conversation or to read it.
Search and siezure applied to physical space, and the founding fathers had intended the limits on search and siezure to protect conversations (especially conversations about influencing the government). Telephones came along, and a guy up on a pole could listen to a conversation in a private residence down the block, without a warrant to enter the premesis.
Lessig explained that the decisions about wiretap law presented the judiciary with a choice - should the law protect the physical space (wiretaps okay) or should the law protect the conversations in the physical space (wiretaps not okay).
There are legal terms for each of these alternatives, although I don't remember them. History is that the judiciary went with the intent, not the letter, of the law set down by people who had no concept that something called a telephone would ever be invented. The judiciary could have justified the decision either way; they had to make a choice. (Whether we like the choice or not is incidental; they're judges and they have the power to make unpopular choices.)
The invention of the telephone directly caused a need for new law to be made, in order to interpret an older law that was being superceeded by the technology.
That's why you sometimes have to make/change law for new technology.
Read Lessig's book. He's a good writer and he is on the forefront of adapting our laws to the planetary network.
Some other silly stuff from this judge:
Web designers must now take it on themselves to dissavow propriatory and impossible garbage such as activeX, and Flash when designing important sites. Google reduces the entire web with simple text, ticket sales should be so easy. Please use only published and open standards for important public services. Hint, you should be able to navigate it easily with lynx, a text based browser.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
The web isn't about pretty graphics and groovy flash movies, it's about sharing information...
Correction: your web is about sharing information (incidentally, so is mine), but there are a lot of people who believe that the web is about interacting, and animation, and movie trailers. Although those are not my preferred uses, it's not my call to say that they're wrong and my way is the only correct one.
For comparison, look at the people who use Usenet to distribute binaries. That wasn't the original goal of the system, and many people don't go anywhere near alt.binaries, but that doesn't stop the files from pouring in.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
The ADA has two purposes. The first one is to eliminate any discrimination towards individuals solely on the basis of their disability. Therefore, the argument must clearly present that "his disability and only his disability" is the root cause of his inability to access tickets at the reduced rate.
Well, one can argue that universal access doesn't apply. For instance, individuals without computers or internet access don't have access to the web site either. That eliminates the sole "disability discrimination rule" that the suit is based upon. If the judge would imply that SWA would be forced to provide a remedy, the customers that don't have computers could naturally sue along the same grounds. I doubt that the judge will let that happen any time soon.
The second purpose of the ADA is clearly define and legislate uniform standards of access for disabled individuals covered under the "universal access" portion of the ADA. While it is true that the government has officially legislated web standards for "public sector" (government) sites, the same is not true for private sector sites. SWA falls under the private sector. Therefore, there isn't a legislated standard for them to follow.
Result. Case gets thrown out. The ADA doesn't apply. Next case.
Legally, the decision is correct. Ethically, that decision is debatable. SWA should learn that this case will hurt them in terms of bad PR. And while SWA should give him the reduced rate, they are not legally obligated to do so.
Also, I can safely point out that price isn't that much of a factor. The person sitting next to you in that plane has most likely saved more on his/her flight than you have...
now that i have your attention, look, most /. readers, myself included despise the DMCA because precisely it infringes upon our freedom. and that is the problem. the ada specifically takes away freedom from some, to give "access" or in other words, privileges to others. how so.
Bad, bad, bad comparison.
The philosophy behind freedom in a society such as ours is that one should only limit freedom once it begins to harm the health or freedom of others. Hence, at least according to the philosophy, we have freedom of speech, unless we create a clear and present danger, or unless we commit slander/libel. We have freedom of assembly, but that doesn't give us the freedom to assemble on somebody else's private property.
The DMCA limits freedom of expression in completely nonsensical ways. It outlaws tools which can be used for entirely legal purposes, and outlaws even telling people where to find those tools. It limits freedom in the name of preserving certain others' abilities to-- limit freedom! It's completely contrary to the philosophy of freedom in our country.
On the other hand, the ADA is one case where your freedoms to design your building are being limited precisely because without those limits, you can infringe upon the freedoms of others. If you're building a place accessible to the public, then the public, theoretically, has the freedom to come and go. But, unless you make your building accessible for the disabled, certain folks don't have that freedom. So, the ADA limits your freedoms to prevent you from exercising those freedoms in a manner that infringes upon the freedoms of others.
Don't try to compare the ADA and the DMCA. If anything, that will only lend credence to the DMCA. The last thing we want is a whole set of people concerned with a different issue thinking that supporting the DMCA might help their issue.
(By the way: those keys at the lower left and lower right of your keyboard that say "Shift" on them: they are for making capital letters. Thought you might be interested to know about them.)
-Rob