Saturday, June 7, 2014

Push in Congress for Inflight Movie Captions

Sen. Tom Harkin
Senator Tom Harkin decried the lack of captioning on inflight movies on the Senate floor this week. Harkin, the architect of ADA law, told his colleagues:
I have been trying for some time to get the airlines to provide closed captions on the movies on their airplanes. I can't understand why they don't do it. It doesn't cost anything. You can go to any movie now that's released and if you're hard-of-hearing or deaf, you can go up to a counter free of charges and get a pair of glasses that fit over your own glasses and you can read all the closed captions and follow the exact movie. Maybe you don't think it's a big deal, but if you're hard-of-hearing or your deaf, it's a very big deal.
" Harkin wants to add a measure to a Transportation bill that would require airlines to study the idea. Democratic Sen. Barbara Mikulski, who chairs the committee, says the idea will be considered. Read more here.