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. Saturday, January 19, 2002 3:59 PM Individual Comment Dear Mr. Kenneth Zwick, NON-ECONOMIC LOSS Arguments are being raised that the non-economic loss compensation being offered is substantially less (some suggest by a factor of 10 to 1) than comparative awards in recent US history. This needs to be addressed urgently particularly as claimants are required to abandon their rights to certain further US action ahead of compensation determinations. There is a large disparity between the compensation in respect of married and unmarried victims. The difference is excessive and I would suggest should be no more than 25%. Further I would suggest that extenuating factors related to the individual circumstances of the deceased should further close the gap. For example where it can be shown that an unmarried partner has been seriously prejudiced and suffers by way of the loss, they should be treated proximate a married partner. There have been hundreds of (largely repetitive) appeals for the fair treatment of same sex partners and far far fewer appeals for heterosexual unmarried partners who need fair consideration particularly bearing in mind our changing social norms. The heroism of the NY firemen and police killed needs to be recognized through this fund category. The suffering of the victims, and their kin now and in the years to come, killed on the upper 15 floors of WTC 1, where there were no survivors, warrants special consideration. For both categories I would suggest an increase in non-economic loss of some 50% over the average granted. ECONOMIC LOSS I suggest the basis for projecting future earnings, namely 1998-2000 taxed earnings together with a growth projection of approximately 5% per year is unrealistic and inequitable to the youth killed ( i.e. under 30 years old) as well as to those advancing at greater than 5% per year in the past few years. Earnings in 2001 should be taken as the starting base. I join the chorus in suggesting that the offset of life insurance sends out a poor signal. I suggest that there can be few sound arguments to justify significant differences between single and married victims in respect of the present value of their projected earnings. This is nothing short of discrimination against the families of single victims. There are also I suggest no grounds for differentiating the present value of substantially the same earnings stream in the cases where there are dependants. If this concept remains can I suggest that as a minimum the category of dependant be at least widened to include parents and siblings depending on the individual circumstances of each deceased. Respondent N001548 suggests that the future earnings discount rate used of 5.13% over the risk less rate is excessive and materially affects the amount of compensation in current terms. This clearly warrants clarification. Individual Comment Johannesburg, South Africa September 11 Email: Date The local time and date when the message was written. 2002-01-19 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 dojN002058.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. 2002-01-19