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, January 15, 2002 11:04 AM January 15, 2002 Dear US Government Representative: My husband and I realize that the government is trying to keep the costs of the September 11 payouts down while maintaining fairness as they compensate each victim's family for pain and suffering and for lost wages. We appreciate the opportunity to comment. Our daughter, , 25, perished at the World Trade Center on September 11. In making the final decision about compensation please consider the following: COLLATERAL SOURCES Each family should be treated equally and receive the same amount of government compensation for non-economic loss. Payments from privately purchased life insurance policies or collateral payments from private, non-government sources should not be a consideration in the calculation of government compensation. DETERMINING INCOME Compensation for young workers should be based on projections from their highest income. The idea of determining a lost worker's income by averaging the last three years' salary penalizes the families of young workers. Our daughter graduated from in 1998 and was moving up the financial ladder quickly. In September 2001, when she died, she had more than doubled her starting pay. When she became an analyst in two or three years, her salary would have risen dramatically. had the potential to earn millions of dollars over her lifetime. To average her first three years' salary as a basis for projecting future income is not only unrealistic, but unfair. The government should use the victim's actual income. To determine compensation based on the national average for workers in each occupation, rather than the victim's actual income, appears to be a deliberate attempt to low ball the economic impact of each victim's death. The government is certainly aware that people who work in New York City, especially those in finance, are paid well above the national norm. GENDER BIAS The proposal that women be awarded less based on the notion that they would potentially earn less because of their gender is an affront to our equal rights laws. I have worked full time for over 31 years. If our daughter used me as a model, what would her potential earnings have been? GOVERNMENT RESPONSIBILITY The terrorist attacks on September 11 should never have happened. Since that terrible day, we have been upset with our government, which we believe shares some responsibility for our daughter's death. The government did not protect her or the thousands of others who died, even though it has known since an encrypted computer was decoded after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing that terrorists planned to fly planes into buildings in future attacks. Since the government had this information, why weren't airline security measures tightened? Sky marshals and more stringent immigration policies should have been instituted. Why weren't all government agencies involved in protecting our country coordinated to exchange information and combat this known threat? NON-ECONOMIC LOSS Our daughter's life was sacrificed in part because of our government's negligence and complacency. My husband, our 18 year old son, and I are heartbroken. Many of our dreams for the future died with her that day. We will never see her married or have the pleasure of being grandparents to her children. We have only tears and memories of a beautiful young woman filled with light and love and laughter. She was an innocent victim of terrorist violence, which more stringent government and airline security could have prevented. The $250,000 payment to our family for pain and suffering is too low, especially since by accepting it, we would be required to forfeit our right to sue the airlines and others for liability in her wrongful death. The average award for non-economic loss in airline disasters prior to September 11 was ten times what has been proposed in this draft. Yet the government has extended to the airlines $5 billion in cash and $10 billion in loan guarantees. As it stands now, the victims' families are paying for the airline bailout. The government should honor each victim equally and fairly. It is hoped that the government will rethink some of the proposals in its draft of compensation to families of the victims of September 11. Sincerely, Individual Comment Rockville Centre, NY September 11 Email: Date The local time and date when the message was written. 2002-01-15 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 dojN001618.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. 2002-01-15