HR-3101 Help the cause!

I recently sent an Email to Congressman Barney Frank, A fabulous congressman from my home state who I had the pleasure of interning for when I was a senior in High School. I urged him to support HR 3101, The Twenty-first Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2009.


It took me 10 minutes to do this!
How? go here Write your Representive and simply type in the info, it will connect you with your appropriate district Congressional representive, copy my letter if you want but please remember we are the voice of the people regardless of our abilities!

Honorable Congressman Barney Frank,

I had the pleasure of my first internship as a high school senior back in summer of 1996 working your New Bedford office along side of Elsie Souza who has taught me many important lessons I still carry today.


I am writing to urge you to consider supporting the Twenty-first Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2009 (H.R. 3101), and sponsoring the introduction of companion legislation bill for Senate. This bill is very important to me along with millions of Americans who depend on closed captions.


I think you can understand what it would feel like not to be able to watch a live internet broadcast because there was no sort of captioning present for me to read. Or perhaps download a rental from Netflix only to learn captioning that would otherwise be available on the dvd had been left out.

This is what we face today given the state of technology in our world. the Passing of HR 3101 would bring about the same sweeping changes that enabled Deaf people to enjoy the same rights as the original American with Disability Act passage in 1990 in which I was only 12 years old. I'm hoping with the passing of HR 3101 I can contribute to the next generation behind me.


Thank you for your time,

Joseph Ponte


 (address withheld)