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. Tuesday, April 02, 2002 10:56 AM Public Comment Kenneth L. Zwick, Director Office of Management Programs Civil Division U.S. Department of Justice Main Building, Room 3140 950 Pennsylvania Avenue Washington, DC 20530 Dear Mr. Zwick I have read proposed regulations and the commentary concerning eligibility procedures for compensation under the victim compensation law. I am writing to urge you to change the approach concerning the designation of personal representatives to enforce and receive compensation as a result of the September 11 events. The creation of the fund to manage airline liabilities, give sure compensation to victims and avoid diversions of effort into investigations of possible fault and legal liability are all worthwhile, but do not adequately explain the best reason for this fund - to allow the entire country, in some measure, to shoulder the burdens of this attack, and make tangible measure that this was an assault on the entire country. This means that the hallmark of the administration of the fund needs to be practical justice and fairness, not tied to idiosyncratic issues of local law and certainly not subject to varying outcomes based on extraneous circumstances. Unfortunately, the proposed approach fails these elemental questions of fairness. You should adopt a federal standard, and use a broadly inclusive federal definition of the critical person - the personal representative. In particular, you should recognize the dignity and effect of long-standing domestic partnership relationships, including gay and lesbian relationships. The proposal intends to use state law to find persons entitled to compensation and use state law definitions, or equivalents, to define the person entitled to administer compensation - the personal representative. This would lead to varying results, even withi a state. In Maine, for instance, creditors, including contractors, may qualify as personal representatives of an estate. Domestic partners may register as long term contracting parties in Portland, Maine's largest city, but not elsewhere. Some county jurisdictions routinely approve adoption of children by gay couples, while others have never done so. Personal representatives may be nominated in a will. Claims for wrongful death are maintained under Maine law by the Personal Representative for the benefit of the heirs, not the devisees of a will. This means the Personal Representative who is a domestic partner may not be entitled to any portion of a claim, which must be distributed to sometimes distant relatives instead. The claims fund proceeds for an eligible individual are reduced by collateral sources - these claims, for disability or death insurance, survivor benefits, etc. are often contractual in nature with a named beneficiary. The interplay of this with all of the other factors means that individuals would have varying motivations to shop for forums where they are advantaged in some way. There are probably places in America which still define either domestic partner or gay/lesbian relationships as meretricious or even illegal. Millions of children are born each year in unmarried relationships. Allowing the varying details of state and local laws to dictate how the national purposes behind the victim compensation fund will function is not sound. The domestic partners and children of these murdered Americans deserve to come first. No one was heard to quibble about their martial status or living arrangements when so many of them sacrificed their lives to save others. Comment By: James F. Cloutier, Esq. City Councilor Portland, Maine September 11 Email: Date The local time and date when the message was written. 2002-04-02 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 dojR002876.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. 2002-04-02