United States Supreme Court Installs Hearing Loops

The United States Supreme Court has recently put out a press release that they will be installing hearing loops in the nation's highest court in preparation for the upcoming Court Term: 

A new assistive listening system has been installed in the Courtroom to improve visitor services. The hearing loop system will be available for use when the Court’s Term begins in October. The new system transmits sound through an electromagnetic signal picked up by most hearing aids and cochlear implants without requiring additional equipment. Listening devices will be available for those who wish to use the hearing loop but do not wear hearing aids or have hearing aids that are not compatible with the loop technology. The Court will also continue to offer the FM and Infra-red listening devices made available to Courtroom visitors in the past.

The installation of the “induction loop” (also known as T-Loops or Hearing Loops) assistive listening system in the Courtroom is great news for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community. Many people who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing do not communicate using ASL and use hearing aids or cochlear implants that include a telecoil (a small copper wire which boosts magnetic signals) to help them experience improved sound quality and clarity in venues such as churches, theaters and courthouses simply by switching on their telecoil. 

Kali Borkoski writing for SCOTUSblog explains that the induction loop "works by transmitting sound electromagnetically. An alternating current is run through a wire around the Courtroom, thus creating a magnetic field; when a visitor wearing a telecoil enters the magnetic field, the telecoil picks up the electromagnetic signal, which is processed by a chip in the hearing aid/implant/headset, and fed to the listener’s ear as sound."

The Court is striving to meet the diverse needs of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community by providing communication access such as Assistive Listening Devices or Sign Language interpreters who wish to attend oral arguments at the Court. The Court may be sending a signal to other courts across the country to start installing induction loops into their court rooms because many courts offer other Assistive Listening Devices such as the FM and Infra-red listening devices. Some courts, typically smaller courts, don't offer any listening devices at all. The attempt to get courts in the United States to be compliance with the Americans With Disability Act (ADA) is still an ongoing project. As a result, the Court is setting an example for the rest of the judicial courts across the nation by installing the induction loops in the Court.

I am on the steering committee for the Loop Utah Movement here in Utah. In working with audiologists, businesses and Deaf and Hard of Hearing individuals, our goal is to help state and local government agencies, and places of public accommodation be aware of Hearing Loops (also known as T-Loops or Induction Loops) that will enable them to meet their legal requirements of providing effective communication with Deaf and Hard of Hearing individuals. 

While many courts in Utah offer Assistive Listening Devices such as the FM and Infra-red listening devices, none of them (as far I know) have installed induction loops in their courtrooms. Installing induction loops would be a great help witnesses, jurors, attorneys or just members of the public to hear what is going on in court here in Utah.  Even Judges who wear hearing aids will benefit from having induction loops in their courtrooms. Hearing loops provide the best all-round assistive listening solution. This opinion is shared by most knowledgeable installers and venue operators and he led to induction loop becoming the default solution in most countries.

While many courts here in Utah work hard to meet the needs of Deaf and Hard of Hearing individuals, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done within the criminal justice system.  Hopefully, the Utah judicial system will follow the Court's example by installing hearing loops in courthouses in this state. 

Rasing Money For A Good Cause: Loop Utah Movement Fundraiser

I am on the steering committee for the Loop Utah Movement here in Utah. In working with audiologists, businesses and Deaf and Hard of Hearing individuals, our goal is to help state and local government agencies, and places of public accommodation be aware of Hearing Loops (also known as T-Loops) that will enable them to meet their legal requirements of providing effective communication with Deaf and Hard of Hearing individuals. 

As a result, Loop Utah is seeking donations so that we can continue our ongoing education on loops. By donating to our organization, it will enable us to purchase portable loops to demonstrate this technology, provide a loop to be used at various venues to try, handouts, provide resources and enable ongoing loop education. You can donate either by credit card on our www.looputah.org site or participate in our first Fundraiser Auction & Luncheon on May 2nd here in Utah. 

For more details, see the flyer below. 

Cybercriminals Are Using Fake Court Notices To Infect Your Computer With Viruses

Cybercriminals are constantly trying to fool you into clicking on an attachment in a e-mail so that they can infect your computer with harmful and malicious viruses so that they can either access and take control of your computer, use your computer to comit more cybercrimes, to steal your personal and financial information or simply to spy on you.

In order to convince you to open up the attachment, they either tell you that you have won something and that you have to click on the attached file or tell you that something horrible has happened to you and you must open the file. Cybercriminals come up with all kinds of schemes in an attempt to get you to click on that infected file that has been attached to their e-mail.

The latest scheme they are using is to scare people into believing that they have been summoned to court. The goal is to trick people into opening the malicious attachment by claiming that they have been scheduled to appear in court. I myself have gotten this e-mail. This is what it says: 

Notice to Appear,
Hereby you are notified that you have been scheduled to appear for your hearing that
will take place in the court of San Francisco in January 8, 2014 at 09:00 am.
Please bring all documents and witnesses relating to this case with you to Court on your hearing date.
The copy of the court notice is attached to this letter.
Please, read it thoroughly.
Note: If you do not attend the hearing the judge may hear the case in your absence.
Yours truly,
Abigail Mason
Clerk to the Court.

If you get an e-mail like this, the best thing to do is either delete it or report this e-mail as spam to the company that provides your email account.  

The criminals who have hatched this scheme do not know how the American court system works in notifying someone that they must appear in court. The first red flag is the wording of the e-mail. No Judge or lawyer would ever write a court notice like this. The second red flag is that if a Judge or lawyer wants to you to show up for court, they will NEVER send you an e-mail. What they will do is hire either a police officer or a professional company that serves legal documents to your home or office and hand you a paper saying you must come to court. The final red flag is the attached file that comes with the fake court notice. The attachment has a program that ends with ".exe" which is a sign that it is a computer program that will infect your computer with a virus or some other malware. Sometimes the malicious virus comes as a zip file. Do not click on it. 

It is important to know that sometimes the name of the file may not end with ".exe." The name of the attachment may change, so be careful when opening email attachments. Click here for a list of email attachments you should never open, regardless of where they came from.

Always do a virus scan before opening up an attachment. If you have gotten this e-mail and have clicked on the attachment, immediately do a full scan of your computer using an antivirus software. If you don’t have antivirus software installed on your computer, please click here for a list of free antivirus software.