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. February 4, 2001 Special Master Feinberg Department of Justice Fax 301-519-5956 Dear Sir or Madame: This letter is to discuss the Victim's Compensation Fund enacted by Congress on September 21 and the impact its unfairness is having on my family. I believe that the problem stems from the haste in which it was written...in just 48 hours by Congress. Under this program a large portion of the families like mine will receive nothing beyond what they were already entitled to. While we do wholeheartedly support necessary compensation to the wives, husbands and children, I cannot understand the government's position that the parents of unmarried victims are not included. We are the victims of the September 11th attack, and we urge you to change the federal regulations to provide greater compensation for the pain and suffering of our loved ones. This system was created to reduce the liability of the airlines and others, severely limiting the ability of our families to recover damages in court. In return, we have an unjust, limited compensation scheme with inadequacies. The regulations allow non-economic damages that are approximately one-tenth the level normally paid in other plan crash and terrorism cases. The non-economical award of $250,000 is an insult when one considers the economic support given to the airlines industry. Because the law requires deduction of "collateral sources" including life insurance and pension plans, the awards allowed under these regulations will be unconscionably low. With awards for members of the military, there are no deductions for social security, workers compensation, life insurance and other such factors as there would be for our families. Why did Congress decide differently in the September 11th tragedy? When you deduct social security and workers compensation (social security and workers comp death benefits are paid to everyone gainfully employed) then deduct life insurance and pensions that had, we are left with basically nothing. The loss of our son , a New York City fireman, has devastated our family. He was always an integral part of our lives bringing joy, help and support to us and life will never be the same again. My wife and I have been disabled for years, a condition made tolerable because of anticipated golden years enjoyed with the love and pride in our children. Our happiness is gone forever...our lives destroyed with the events of September 11th. Now, with the unimaginable heartache from the loss of our beloved son, the government has added an inexplicable hurt to our overwhelming sadness in stating that families such as ours, are not entitled to fair compensation for our loss. was off duty, ready to return home, when the alarms came in, and without question, he again put on his gear, ran down the street and jumped on the fire engine to join his fellow firefighters in this emergency. This unselfish decision, as you know, cost him his life and cost us our beloved son. was an American who loved his country, paid his taxes, and was killed by a terrorist organization that killed before. He was a taxpayer for 20 years and will continue to be a taxpayer because his social security and death benefits are taxed. His tax dollars, will go toward rebuilding Afghanistan, bailing out the airline industry ($15 billion), and paying the high cost of "justice" for . His sacrifice has been lost in the arguments over benefits for his family. The airline bailout created a compensation fund for people who waive their right to sue. Awards are to be based partly on economic loss suffered by each family and partly on pain and suffering the victim endured...there will never be enough money minted to compensate for our loss. The entire nation was attacked on September 11th, but the victims in the trade center and their families suffered the direct hit!! It would be the ultimate irony if tax dollars that failed to protect him and destroyed his family were to go everywhere else but toward rebuilding his family's life. I cannot live with that. Can you? Sincerely, Individual Comment Deer Park, NY September 11 Email: Date The local time and date when the message was written. 2001-02-04 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 dojP000502.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. 2001-02-04