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, February 03, 2002 2:46 PM (no subject) Dear Mr. Ashcroft, I am writing to you to let you know that I OBJECT to the Victim's Compensation Fund for the following reasons: There are many of us victims who feel the fund is WOEFULLY INADEQUATE as it stands now. The DOJ has ignored the fundamental mandate of the act to provide FULL and FAIR compensation to victims and their families, and instead created a formulaic federal program based on irrelevant concepts more familiar to the bureaucracy. The DOJ's proposed awards for noneconomic damages are only 1/10th the level paid in comparable cases such as Lockerbie. Congress explicitly enumerated a broad range of non-economic damages for which the victims and their families shall be compensated. The DOJ ignored this, and based its presumed awards on a military gropu life insurance program (SGLI) with a maximum of 250K, and a federal statue providing 250K to families of fallen public safetly officers - on top of other amounts they may receive. The DOJ's approach assumes that Congress intended the non-economic damages to be illusory, because a 250K SGLI payment would, for a serviceman killed at the Pentagon, would wipe out those damages under the collateral offset requirements. The DOJ's proposed awards for economic damages GROSSLY undersetimates the actual losses. Forensic economists have discovered other SERIOUS flaws in the DOJ's methodology. The DOJ underestimates promotions and other increases in earnings for victims. It relied on federal civil service and military retirement system boards that track federal worker incomes and pensions requirements, not the higher-paying private sector career paths. My husband was a CIVILIAN not a federal employee and this should not be used to calculate my ACTUAL losses!! The DOJ's reliance on past 3 years of income, looks SUSPICIOUSLY like a federal pension approach, rather than considering the likely income earning potential of the decedent, as is routinely done in wrongful death cases. The regulations ARBITRARLIY cap the victim's income, potentially cutting the comnpensation amount by 50%. As a result, many widows will have to sell their homes, deplete their children's college savings accounts, and give up their plans of being full-time parents while their children are young. I seriously doubt this is what Congress intended! The low level of presumtive awards will result in MANY families receiving little or nothing from the fund, once the collateral source deductions are made. Please note in a court case this "rule" would not apply! A families award may be increased above the "presumptive" award only by a showing of "extraordinary circumstances, beyond those suffered by other victims or their families. This makes the hearing or appeal to the Special Master a mere CHARADE! The DOJ should fulfill, rather than flout, the act's INTENT by REVISING its rules to compensate victims and their families for the types of damages SPECIFIED by CONGRESS, at levels comparable to those provided in the tort system the fund was designed to replace. Mr. Ashcroft, I fully support and appreciate the War on Terrorism. I am imploring you to do the right thing by the families, all 2800+ of us, who lost their husbands, fathers, sons, daughters and plans for their families future on September 11, 2001. Please do me one favor and put yourself in my place for one minute. Suppose it was your wife, son or daughter who was murdered in the terrorist attacks, would you be pleased with the DOJ's implimentation of Congress' airline bailout act? This act gave the airlines 15 billion dollars of taxpayers' money and capped the airlines liability at the limits of their insurance coverage. It set up the fund so the airlines' bailout would not come at the expense of the victims' families. Why are we so quick to help the airlines and yet try to nickle and dime the American people, who are taxpayers and voters? Please do the RIGHT THING and stop victimizing us with this charade of a fund called the Victim's Compensation Fund, it really should be called the Victim's NON-Compensation Fund, as I a mother of 5 young children ages 9,8,6,5 and 2 will wind up with little or NOTHING if the rules are not changed. Does that seem like justice to you? Sincerely, Individual Comment September 11 Email: Date The local time and date when the message was written. 2002-02-03 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 dojP000370.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. 2002-02-03