White House Website Violates Federal Law
White House Website Violates Federal Law
Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act “require[s] federal agencies to ensure that EIT [electronic information technology] they procure is accessible to people with disabilities.” That includes websites.
The White House website does not comply with Section 508. A review (located here, here, and here) of three pages on http://www.whitehouse.gov found 49 instances of Section 508 violations.
Most notably, these White House pages don’t provide alternative text for all images. A blind person surfing the Internet uses a program that searches for text that identifies images. Many images on the White House site have no associated text in the web code and leave a person with disabilities unable to tell what the image is.
Contact Linda Sites and Linda Tolkan in the Executive Office of the President and ask why the White House site isn’t in compliance and what steps, if any, are being taken to fix the problem. (Check out American Progress’s letter to the EOP here.)
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Not to nitpick here, but section 508 is a very loose set of rules which almost nobody follows perfectly. Yes, it is good design – but generally impractical. I can see the purpose for the law, but singling out the White House is a bit much.
Besides, I think if you mention section 508 to Bush he’d think it’s a UN resolution to bomb Syria.
July 19th, 2006 at 10:10 amI have to agree with Chris on this one. While I agree that the White House should be the role model on all things… they are falling short on way more important issues that we could spend time sending letters about.
July 19th, 2006 at 10:17 amJust talked to Linda. She said they’ll get all over it…they’re base IS the blind, and the fascists don’t want to leave anybody behind. Relax.
July 19th, 2006 at 10:17 amLet’s focus on getting our Constitution back, getting our votes to be counted and maybe try to stop the spread of crazy around the world. I’ll give them a pass on their web site compliance.
July 19th, 2006 at 10:20 am..cmon..bigger fish to fry…
July 19th, 2006 at 10:27 amI actually think that, just because there is a war, doesn’t mean we should forget about the disabled. Even during the war on terror, blind people should be able to navigate the White House website. There are people employed by the government to make sure that’s the case. They should do their job.
July 19th, 2006 at 10:29 amThe representatives don’t care. The majority of people don’t care. The decider can do anything he want to do. There is little a concientious person can do outside of writing letters and voting for predisposed sycophants. This is just a small part of what can be seen. The unseen, but poorly documented illegal acts of this and the previous administrations back to Reagan are stagering and have moved the US clearly out of what should be considered a representative republic.
This country is filled with an impenatrable wall of government secrets for plutocrats and the military industrial complex that it serves. It hasn’t been a representative republic based on democratic principles for years and the 2000 and 2004 elections were nails in the coffin that has sealed the end of 100 years of the plutocrats putting down the concepts of progressives.
July 19th, 2006 at 10:31 amBush the Decider has decided that blind people do not have the proper security clearance to access such website information.
July 19th, 2006 at 10:32 amGeorge Bush hates blind people.
And speaking of helping the blind, why is the text in this comment form so freaking small? ;)
July 19th, 2006 at 10:38 amActually, IMO getting the WH to comply with this law is a form of getting our Constitution back. The President is supposed to execute, uphold and defend our laws per the Constitution. If he can’t get his own “house” in order, how can he have anything to say to any other American or, even more, to other nations? Watch for a signing statement or some other such nonsense.
July 19th, 2006 at 10:41 am10: lynn
I’ll disagree, Dubya loves the blind, blind faith, blind of the facts, blind stupidity as they voted him into office.
July 19th, 2006 at 10:42 amThe less informed people the better
That’s the repuglican policy
July 19th, 2006 at 10:47 amIt does not matter because the White House pages just use the White House PCs to come onto blogs like ThinkProgress to gum up the threads > now you know where the Bush lover trolls are from > lol.
July 19th, 2006 at 11:19 amThe White House doesn’t care about disabled people.
Kayne West.
July 19th, 2006 at 11:20 amI completely agree with JH on comment 9 and believe the WH webmaster should be able to use the validation tools without too much trouble. The only thing I disagree with in the original post is that the letter was just sent 2 days ago. I think we should give them a week to respond or comply before flooding them with more complaints. I think process is important, and we risk sounding shrill if we go apeshit as soon as we find something wrong without giving them a chance to correct it. I think the strategy should be to allow them a week to respond or comply. If they don’t, contact the ADA and have them apply some pressure. If that doesn’t work, I think then it’s time to unleash the email onslaught.
July 19th, 2006 at 11:32 amOnce again. George Soros’ money is being well spent on this in-depth research. Keep up the great work. Maybe you can focus in on how many staffers fail to wash their hands after using the restroom.
July 19th, 2006 at 11:35 am@ #17
Of course – because federal law doesn’t have to be followed when it comes to the White House.
This web acccessibility stuff is not difficult, and its the law.
Oh – and we know staffers have an excellent record of washing their hands. They’ve washed their hands in the affairs of Plamegate, washed their hands of responsibility for making Iraq totally FUBAR, washed their hands regarding their violations of Constitutional checks against Executive power, the list goes on and on.
July 19th, 2006 at 11:52 amSpeaking of the White House web site, anyone read George’s bio lately? Nothing about the election/appointment of him in 2000. It bypasses this and begins with his inauguration. But there is reference to the 2004 election. Hmmm.
July 19th, 2006 at 12:08 pm…Upon further review:
The site’s code is really nasty, a rat’s nest of tables, old Javascript, and even code-level FONT tags (eww!). its a really old-school way of designing and is generally not the acceptable form of coding a site nowadays. The site’s also missing a Doc Type Definition.
However, the overall accessibility of the site is pretty good. They have alt text for every image, every button, the site works with JavaScript turned off, they provide text-only versions of every page, increasing the font size of pages doesn’t break the overall design — it looks like they’ve addressed many of accessibility problems mentioned above.
July 19th, 2006 at 12:09 pmSigning statement 751: The President has the sole constitutional discretion on whether blind people are able to access his website.
July 19th, 2006 at 12:27 pmEven your website doe not comply! so whiy should the White House Comply. Ever heard of leading by example!! SO QUITYOURBITCHN!!!
July 19th, 2006 at 2:06 pm#22: It’s not federal law that TP comply with accessibility standards (although it would be a good idea).
It is difficult to comply but there is a webmaster whose job it is do to that.
And I don’t think there’s a problem with holding the government responsible on all accounts, not just the life-and-death ones. The people reponsible are different.
Nice font on the letter BTW!
July 19th, 2006 at 3:27 pmDid anyone see the “director of website creation” on that list of WH staffers who got raises?
Guess this means they did a “helluva job” but they’ll have to take that raise away from them — or ten lashes with a wet noodle administered by either Ann Coulter or Jeff Gannon.
July 19th, 2006 at 3:55 pmOh, we KNOW how you conservatives “play” with your kids. KO should be grateful.
July 19th, 2006 at 9:23 pmnice page :]
July 24th, 2006 at 6:23 am[...] Stem-cell research; a new congressional effort to restrict abortion rights; the White House violating federal disability access laws; another effort to constitutionally ban gay rights; a continuing battle over minimum wage issues; the need to rise above scapegoating and racism in the immigration debate; cuts in funding for workplace safety; and a battle over the future of the National Labor Relations Board and the rights of middle-class workers. [...]
July 26th, 2006 at 11:36 amNoncompliant with Section 508 and ugly. Way to go
October 9th, 2006 at 2:27 amFucc u bush and all u other pigs
January 10th, 2007 at 12:46 pmfcewwwwwwwwwwwww
January 10th, 2007 at 12:46 pm