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. Sunday, January 20, 2002 1:42 PM Help the victims It is with a disappointed and heavy heart that I write this letter to you. I am a good friend of the family; and their husband and father, was a good friend to me, my best friend, for the 18 years that I knew him. He worked hard all his life to obtain his goals and finally had those goals in sight when terrorist took his life on September 11, 2001. He was in his office, at his desk, doing his job as a bond trader and the terrorist that killed him attacked him because he was the very strength of America: its economy. was the type of person that the terrorist wanted to kill, someone who made the American economy move. left behind a loving wife and two young children that will only know him through the stories of family and friends. His wife's pain is and suffering are a heavy burden to bear, and I know this because I have watched her bear it for the past four months. worked hard because he wanted to take care of his wife and family, he wanted his children to grow up in a comfortable home, go to college and become as successful as he was becoming. I am proud of the manner in which my friend cared for his family, but I am not proud of the way in which my government chooses to support the victims of the undeclared war against our country. The logic of the Special Master is flawed and does not justly compensate the victims. How does he arrive at the conclusion that non-economic damages (i.e. pain & suffering) are equal to $250,000 for the decedent and $50,000 for each surviving person when juries award larger sums to people that break a hip tripping on a sidewalk? The pain and suffering of the victim's families are unprecedented from the attack on September 11th, the monies chosen by the Special Master to compensate the victim's families for this pain and suffering are unremarkable. Equally unprecedented is his decision to use collateral offsets, such as pension and life insurance to diminish the compensation for potential loss of earnings. Life insurance is earned by paying premiums and should have no effect on the compensation given by the victims compensation fund. Finally, the calculation of the compensation for potential loss of earnings makes no sense. How does he arbitrarily exclude earnings for 2001? Earning for 2001 should not be excluded, they should be prorated so that they are representative of a full year, not nine months. How does the Special Master decide to put an arbitrarily cap on the earnings of people that worked in the financial industry so that it becomes equal to those that did not? This appears to be an attempt to make all things equal in a situation where they clearly are not. Americans have shown that we support the victims of September 11th. We have donated to charities that represent them, we wear flag pins on our lapels to show our solidarity, and we stood behind the President's decision to use military action against the terrorist and those who support them. Our government now has the opportunity to show them that we care once more. Instead we ask hem the victims' families to give up their right to a fair civil trial and offer them little in return. I have seen family suffer enough because of what our enemies have done; I don't want to see them suffer because of what my government fails to do. The children of September 11th will grow up knowing that their parents died national heroes, please don't let them grow up knowing that their government treated them like something less. Individual Comment September 11 Email: Date The local time and date when the message was written. 2002-01-20 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 dojN002118.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. 2002-01-20