Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Department of Justice Emails Description An account of the resource The Department of Justice received more than 11,000 e-mails in response to the agency's public solicitation for comments upon its plans to distribute the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund of 2001 established by Congress to benefit the victims of September 11 and their families. These e-mails have been organized here by date. September 11 Email September 11 Email: Body The basic content, as unstructured text; sometimes containing a signature block at the end. Monday, November 05, 2001 3:15 PM Comments on Victims Fund Dear Department of Justice: The September 11, 2001 victims of the terrorist attacks, who lost fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, sons, daughters, grand parents, grand children, should be compensated without restriction. Those people have a prima-facia case of greatest harm done, and should receive full benefits. The only criterian for this first group should be the production of a death certificate; and death certificates should be expedited. They should not have to fill out an endless bureaucratic form. The form should have the name, address, SSAN, phone number, and show how connected to the deceased, plus the attached death certificate, and little else. Get that money to them as fast as possible. Some of these people are having severe financial difficulties; can't make mortgage/rent payments; facing evictions; running out of necessities, etc. Give these people the benefit of the doubt on the front end; an honors system. Let them know that "we the government understand your predicament, and we want to get the money to you as quickly as possible. We know that a minute percentage will take advantage. We are willing to forego that and strict accontability on the front end so those in immediate need will not suffer. However, be advised, on the back end, four years hence, we will have to do accountability studies to protect the public, and all criminal laws will apply." And then four years down the line, do exactly that, the accountability study. That way you let people know, we'll "take it on the chin up front, but don't cheat us, because we'll get you in the end." Don't get into all of this determination stuff, "the harm to the claimant, the facts of the claim, and the individual circumstances of the claimant." Forget it. That's old bureaucratic hogwash. These people need immediate help. They don't need to go through some legalistic mine field invented by some old stuffed shirt, who doesn't fully realize the pain these people are going through. The amount of the award should be high enough, so as to preclude law suits. Also, all awards should be the same. Find out what the highest award would most likely be, and then give it to all of them equally. Don't get into this garbage about, "this is the CEOs wife, so she gets $10 million, but this is the janitors wife, so she only gets $200,000. Forget all that inequality stuff. By accident of birth, the CEOs wife is where she is; and not by some intrinsic value in being the CEOs wife. Let's not reward what amounts to a roll of the dice. The government has a chance to shine in perhaps its finest hour in a generation. If the CEOs wife is worth $10 million, then all the wives are worth that, regardless of their circumstances, and all should be treated that way. Can you imagine the signal that would send to the downtrodden? The little six-year old ghetto runts will stick out their little chests and say " I'm proud to be an American becuase our government treats everybody equally." He may even decide to try extra hard to be a good citizen rather than a drain. And what is that worth to you Mr. and Mrs. America? So treat them all the same. It's good law that if they accept their award, they forfeit the right to sue. Forget this other stuff too, like: reducing the awards by the amount the families receive from pensions, insurance, gifts. Forget the collateral source compensation part of the law or change it or modify it or demphasize it. Forget stuff that punishes our own people like these reductions do. Make it as painless as possible. These are extraordinary times. Sure some people will "get over," but most won't. People don't want money. They want their relatives back. But since that cannot happen, providing money is the least we can do for them. Let's not punish our good people, let's get on about the business of punishing the perpetrators of this crime against humanity. That takes care of close relatives. Now for distant relatives, or fiances, or in otherwords, all those not included in the first group above, then the government would be justified in having them go through the longer process as outlined in the letter of the law. Best Regards, Individual Comment September 11 Email: Date The local time and date when the message was written. 2001-11-05 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource dojW000032.xml 911DA Item Elements describing a September 11 Digital Archive item. Status The process status of this item. approved Consent Whether September 11 Digital Archive has permission to possess this item. full Posting Whether the contributor gave permission to post this item. yes Copyright Whether the contributor holds copyright to this item. yes Source The source of this item. born-digital Media Type The media type of this item. email Created by Author Whether the author created this item. yes Described by Author Whether the description of this item was submitted by the author. no Date Entered The date this item was entered into the archive. 2001-11-05