The Stone Skipping Effect
Last September 30th in Trenton, NJ, John Yeh and his brother, Joseph Yeh, were sentenced for their respective roles in perpetrating a $20+ million dollar fraud on the FCC. The Yehs, of Viable Communications, Inc. in Rockville, Md., along with other conspirators and participants, used video relay services (VRS) in illegally running up minutes for fraudulent reimbursement by the FCC.
John Yeh issued a ‘Statement to the Court” on YouTube. While it is signed in American Sign Language (ASL), it is captioned. I direct your attention to a key passage; “It was my intention to help the people of my community. It was my dream to create job opportunities for the Deaf and hard of hearing.” He misstates the true purpose behind Telecommunications Relay Services (TRS), a Congressional mandate. By his actions and others involved in the wholesale fraud of the TRS Fund, they truly have hurt the Deaf/HH community.
Congressional Rationale for TRS Services
Congress originally approved access to the nation’s telecommunications infrastructure for people with disabilities as a part of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), via Title IV. At first, individual states were required to establish relay services for its citizens. Eventually, the regulatory framework encompassed interstate relay, and the TRS Fund currently supports a couple of services such as text relay and video relay.
TRS is intended to allow people with a hearing and/or speech disability to access the nation’s telecommunications networks in the daily course of their lives. That means Deaf people can call up their bank, set up doctor’s appointments, call their families, and to secure mainstream job opportunities.
The TRS program was never designed to create job opportunities for Deaf people in the relay industry. Rather, it was the existence of TRS that allowed mainstream employers to hire, retain, and/or promote Deaf people, knowing that they had access to the telephone. That said, Deaf people continue to work in the relay industry and are invaluable contributors to the engine of growth for the Deaf community in mainstream America.
More importantly, it was a Congressional mandate, a solemn public undertaking. It is not a program designed to ‘help the people of [a certain] community.” It is a service offered to the public at large; openly available for everyone, whether they have a hearing or speech disability, whether they are on a VoIP phone, videophone, computer, or just the plain old telephone. It is a service that connects the American public, cutting across the whole American fabric and way of daily life.
The Regulatory Side of TRS
Unfortunately, there was a period of laissez-faire regulation when it came to the early years of the VRS industry. Within a few years, various individuals and businesses in the VRS marketplace began to game the TRS Fund in lieu of serving their consumers. This led to an ‘arms race’, where companies acquire the Deaf ‘talent’ and the interpreter capital.
Some companies began to view their Deaf employees as profit centers, and competed with other VRS companies in acquiring and retaining interpreters as communications assistants. At the same time, there was a severe interpreter shortage, leading to a big rise in salaries and benefits for them.
Like dominoes, various participants exploited relay workers for their personal gain, and their activities toppled other competitors to do the same. The FCC caught on, and along with the FBI, arrested over two dozen individuals for their fraudulent activities in gaming the TRS Fund for illegal minutes. Millions of dollars were lost. Some were fined and sentenced. Some are still being investigated.
100,000 Stone Skippers in a Lake
The public knows what happened, and the FCC is attempting to rein in the fraud. But, what about the unknown damage that resulted from this illegal gaming of the TRS Fund? Were there any unintended consequences stemming from the actions made by these rogue participants? The answer is yes – allow me to illustrate this with a lake, if you will, with 100,000 ‘stone skippers’.
This lake is the sum total of mainstream American daily life, where the lives of ordinary Americans intersect, regardless of disability. People with disabilities are guaranteed access to most of this lake, thanks to the various state and federal laws governing accessibility to the mainstream societies they live in. However, guaranteeing access is not the same as ensuring that accessibility does indeed happen.
Case in point; the usual accommodation for a Deaf person is an ASL interpreter, regardless of what actual law is being invoked to allow access. Before VRS came into fruition, interpreters were in high demand, as they were needed to accommodate Deaf people in nearly all walks in life, from doctors, courts, their employment, and more… With a tight supply, the prices rose for such services. Despite this obstacle, Deaf/HH people made some inroads into mainstream society.
The 100,000’s of people who skipped stones into the lake were the ones who granted access for a person with a hearing and/or speech disability. By taking action in granting access, they threw and skipped a stone across this lake, leaving behind ripples. Due to the ongoing nature of the accommodation, the stone must ‘skip’ a number of times before settling into the lake.
The participants in the VRS industry were no different than their brethren in the government, public accommodations, and employment arenas. By enabling access to the telecommunications network for Deaf people, they also threw and skipped stones across the same lake.
Ripples Collide
You can easily visualize a picture where there’s a lake and there’s stones skipping, and ripples everywhere on the surface. Eventually, many of these ripples intersect and collide with each other. Some similar ripples (i.e., VRS participants) will join together, amplifying their power. The speed and frequency of the ripples (i.e., fraud) makes them stronger. The force of stronger ripples will eventually overwhelm the weaker ones, often dissipating them.
The nexus behind each ripple collision is the ongoing cost of the accommodation; the ASL interpreter. Already tight when VRS services came into being, the costs soared to unsustainable levels. The FCC, by way of the TRS Fund, were paying top dollar and steady benefits for the interpreter capital, at rates the private and public sectors could not, and were often unwilling to match.
In a span of few years, the lake was now full of ripples created by VRS industry participants; the private and public sectors largely retreated from the lake, and as a result, access to mainstream society for Deaf people was being severely impaired and/or curbed.
Collateral Damage Caused by Fraudulent VRS Activities
This is the irreparable damage caused by fraudulent actions against the TRS Fund by participants bent on personal greed. Who knows how many countless doctor’s appointments were cancelled because they could not accommodate the interpreter request for a Deaf patient? How many Deaf people have died or maimed for life because of unwise decisions made by medical professionals in eschewing ASL interpreters in their course of treatment?
How many Deaf people were denied jobs, promotions, or lost their jobs because their employers decided that the cost of the ongoing accommodations of ASL interpreters were too ‘burdensome’? How many Deaf students attended classes at their local schools with unqualified or no interpreters, because school districts could not or were unwilling to pay for such accommodations? How many Deaf people were denied justice when they appeared before the courts w/o interpreters?
The Unintended Consequence of VRS Fraud
The list goes on. The ripples still continue, albeit with less force, now that VRS reform initiatives by the FCC are catching on. However, the damage has been done. The vast majority of the people who retreated from the lake have not yet returned. Public confidence in the relay industry and the interpreting profession has been shattered. In addition to the fraud, that is the damage these perpetrators have done to the Deaf community; they have harmed them by restricting their access to their mainstream communities.
The VRS reform initiatives are still ongoing at the FCC in Docket #10-51. I invite you to comment on how to best reform the VRS industry for this decade and beyond. There is an important NPRM (11-184) that will profoundly reshape the VRS industry. While I caution the FCC not to have a heavy regulatory hand, they must craft final rule(s) that make way for practical realities imposed upon the American public by the various state and federal laws governing accessibility for Deaf people.
I also call upon all VRS Providers to pledge that they will only handle organic minutes and to serve the public, not gaming the TRS Fund. Public confidence is a fragile thing, and we need to restore our faith in relay services and the interpreting profession.
I truly believe the industry has already started on this path, and in partnership with stakeholders and the FCC, the Deaf community will get all the civil rights they need to access mainstream society in nearly all aspects of daily life. Only then, can this American lake can be full of ripples colliding in equal force, with the blissful harmony of overlapping concentric circles upon its surface.