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Accessibility for Individuals with Disabilities

​​The U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) is committed to providing access to the content on our website for individuals with disabilities. Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended, requires us to ensure that Federal employees and members of the public with disabilities have access to and use of information and data that is comparable to that of Federal employees and members of the public who are not disabled, unless an undue burden would be imposed on us.

We will make every effort to comply with the requirements of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1998 (29 U.S.C. 794) and the accessibility standards for implementing Section 508 issued by the U.S. Access Board.

If you use assistive technology and have trouble accessing information on www.osc.gov, please contact us. Please include the URL (web address) of the information you tried to access and your contact information. We will respond to you as soon as possible and do what we can to provide you with the information you need. For further information, please contact Zachary Kurz, Communications Director, at (202) 804-7000 or zkurz@osc.gov.

An individual may file an equal employment opportunity (EEO) complaint if they believe OSC is not compliant with Section 508. The complaint can be filed with OSC's EEO Office. For further information, please contact Shirine Moazed, EEO Director, at (202) 804-7000 or smoazed@osc.gov​.

To learn more about accessibility requirements for electronic and information technology, see the Access Board's Section 508 standards. Questions about accessibility of electronic and information technology may be directed to 508@access-board.gov. Additional information on Section 508 can be found here.

Architectural Barriers Act of 1968 (42 U.S.C. §§ 4151--57)
The Architectural Barriers Act (ABA) requires access to facilities that are designed, built, altered, or leased with Federal funds. The Access Board is responsible for enforcing the ABA. The Access Board's accessibility standards are available on their website, and information about filing a complaint may be found here. For more information, please contact Communications Director Zachary Kurz. ​

Contacting OSC by Telephone

All OSC telephone numbers listed on this web site can be accessed by callers with hearing/speech disabilities via TTY, by first dialing the Federal Relay Service at 1-800-877-8339.

Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF)​

Most of the documents contained within this site are available in both Portable Document Format (PDF) and web based (HTML) formats. The PDF documents have been created using Adobe Acrobat 5.0 making them accessible and compliant with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1998. However, these documents can only be viewed and printed using Adobe Acrobat Reader ®, which can be downloaded free from Adobe.

Adobe offers free services through Access.Adobe.Com to provide access for blind and visually impaired users to any document in Adobe PDF format. PDF documents are converted into simple HTML or ASCII text which can then be read by a number of common screen reading programs that synthesize the HTML as audible speech.

The following conversion options are available through Access.Adobe.Com:​