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            <name>Title</name>
            <description>A name given to the resource</description>
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                <text>Department of Justice Emails</text>
              </elementText>
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          <element elementId="41">
            <name>Description</name>
            <description>An account of the resource</description>
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                <text>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.</text>
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    <name>September 11 Email</name>
    <description/>
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        <name>September 11 Email: Body</name>
        <description>The basic content, as unstructured text; sometimes containing a signature block at the end.</description>
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            <text>


               Congress of the United States
                 House of Representatives
                  Washington, DC 20515

                                 November 15, 2001



The Honorable John Ashcroft
Attorney General
Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20530

 Dear Mr. Attorney General,

 We applaud the approach you are taking in soliciting wide public comment in fulfilling your legislative mandate to promulgate regulations governing the
distribution of funds voted by Congress and approved by the President for victims of the terrorist attacks of September 11.

Because it was important for us to act speedily, the legislation of necessity sets our broad guidelines and leaves to you and your department the job of
providing specificity so that these funds can be distributed fairly and expeditiously.

We write to express our view on one aspect of this important set of questions which is before you-namely, we urge that in creating the category of those who
qualify as "survivors of someone lost in the crashes", (Topic 5, Notice of Inquiry), we can best carry out the intent and spirit of the law by compensating all of
those who suffered both grievous emotional loss from these murders and significant financial loss as well.

That is, we believe that the federal government should provide such compensation as is appropriate to all of those who had a close relationship with the
murdered victim and whose own financial position will be seriously adversely affected by the death. Relevant indicia of such a relationship include a shared
residence, shared bank accounts for other financial instruments, joint membership in a health plan a significant sharing of living expenses, etc. Obviously a
wide range of different personal relationships will be covered by this, and we believe that this coverage is wholly appropriate in this instance.  We note that
this is the approach taken by Governor George Patalo of New York, where so many of the victims live.

The act we passed was not an effort by the Congress to regulate any set of personal relationships nor to encourage or discourage people from following any
particular pattern in their living arrangements. It was simply a prompt response by the Congress to the terrible murders inflicted on America on September 11,
in particular by doing what we can to come to the aid of those who were particularly victimized by the deaths of people close to them. Aiding all of this latter
category of victims seems to us the appropriate response.

The Honorable John Ashcroft
Page 2

 The Honorable John Ashcroft
Page 3

 The Honorable John Ashcroft
Page 4



          Signatories to Letter To Attorney General John Ashcroft
                    Re: Aiding Survivors of September 11th Attack



Page 2


Rep. Christopher Shays

Rep. Rob Simmons
Rep. Benjamin Gilman

Rep. Joseph Crowley
Rep. Barney Frank

Rep. Sherwood Boehler
Rep. Maurice Hinchey

Rep. David Wu
Rep. Jim McGovern

Rep. Wayne T. Gilchrest
Rep. Amo Houghton

Rep. James Leach
Rep. Anthony Weiner

Rep. Jim Kolbe
Rep. Edolphus Towns

Rep. Charles Rangel


Page 5


Rep  Nancy Johnson 

Rep. Connie Morella
Rep  Major R. Owens

Rep. Jerrold Nadler
Rep. Sherrod Brown

Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr.
Rep. Sue Kelly

Rep. Carolyn McCarthy
Rep. Mark Foley

Rep. Frank Pallene, Jr.
Rep. Jose E. Serrano

Rep. Eliot L. Engel
Rep. Nydia M. Velazquez

Rep. Robert Menendez
Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro 

Rep. Stephen Horn


 Page 4 


Rep. John M McHugh 

Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney
Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen

Rep. Nita Lowey
Rep. Louise M. Slaughter

Rep. Michael R. McNulty
Rep. Steve Israel

Rep. Tammy Baldwin
Rep. Gregory W. Meeks

Rep. Jim Maloney
Rep. Mark Kirk 

Rep. John B. Larson

       

 
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        <name>September 11 Email: Date</name>
        <description>The local time and date when the message was written.</description>
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          <elementText elementTextId="314741">
            <text>2001-11-15</text>
          </elementText>
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        <element elementId="50">
          <name>Title</name>
          <description>A name given to the resource</description>
          <elementTextContainer>
            <elementText elementTextId="314742">
              <text>dojW000743.xml</text>
            </elementText>
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    </elementSet>
    <elementSet elementSetId="4">
      <name>911DA Item</name>
      <description>Elements describing a September 11 Digital Archive item.</description>
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        <element elementId="52">
          <name>Status</name>
          <description>The process status of this item.</description>
          <elementTextContainer>
            <elementText elementTextId="314743">
              <text>approved</text>
            </elementText>
          </elementTextContainer>
        </element>
        <element elementId="53">
          <name>Consent</name>
          <description>Whether September 11 Digital Archive has permission to possess this item.</description>
          <elementTextContainer>
            <elementText elementTextId="314744">
              <text>full</text>
            </elementText>
          </elementTextContainer>
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        <element elementId="54">
          <name>Posting</name>
          <description>Whether the contributor gave permission to post this item.</description>
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            <elementText elementTextId="314745">
              <text>yes</text>
            </elementText>
          </elementTextContainer>
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        <element elementId="55">
          <name>Copyright</name>
          <description>Whether the contributor holds copyright to this item.</description>
          <elementTextContainer>
            <elementText elementTextId="314746">
              <text>yes</text>
            </elementText>
          </elementTextContainer>
        </element>
        <element elementId="56">
          <name>Source</name>
          <description>The source of this item.</description>
          <elementTextContainer>
            <elementText elementTextId="314747">
              <text>born-digital</text>
            </elementText>
          </elementTextContainer>
        </element>
        <element elementId="57">
          <name>Media Type</name>
          <description>The media type of this item.</description>
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            <elementText elementTextId="314748">
              <text>email</text>
            </elementText>
          </elementTextContainer>
        </element>
        <element elementId="59">
          <name>Created by Author</name>
          <description>Whether the author created this item.</description>
          <elementTextContainer>
            <elementText elementTextId="314749">
              <text>yes</text>
            </elementText>
          </elementTextContainer>
        </element>
        <element elementId="60">
          <name>Described by Author</name>
          <description>Whether the description of this item was submitted by the author.</description>
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            <elementText elementTextId="314750">
              <text>no</text>
            </elementText>
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        <element elementId="61">
          <name>Date Entered</name>
          <description>The date this item was entered into the archive.</description>
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            <elementText elementTextId="314751">
              <text>2001-11-15</text>
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