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 25, 2002 Mr. Kenneth Feinberg Special Master Victim Compensation Fund U.S. Department of Justice 950 Pennsylvania Avenue Washington, DC 20530 Dear Ken: As a follow up to our earlier memo on undocumented immigrants and their access to the Victim's Compensation Fund, we wanted to elaborate on specific steps relating to employers. As you know, employers will provide critical support to Fund applicants, both in terms of (i) proving presence at the WTC site and (ii) documenting economic loss. For that reason, it is important that employers are encouraged to come forward in support of undocumented victims, and you might consider the following measures aimed at addressing their concerns about potential liability. Advocates have confirmed that many workers in the WTC area were undocumented immigrants and that often these workers were using falsified documents. Employers, particularly the larger ones, were more likely to have dealt with these workers above board, which is to say providing formal pay stubs and filing W-2s with the IRS. In those cases, employers face little risk (though they may still be reluctant) in coming forward and much of the relevant information should already be accessible. The tougher cases involve employers paying their undocumented employees under the table. These employers face potential liabilities on various fronts (INS, IRS, DOL) and to the extent that no formal documents exist proving the employment or earnings, the employer's support is that much more critical to the undocumented victim. In both cases, employers are likely to be more forthcoming if they can be assured that: (i) their name will not be connected to any compromising information; (ii) none of the information will be used (or distributed) outside of the Fund application process, or (iii) they will not suffer any liability stemming from the information they provide. 1. Anonymity. Providing some degree of anonymity may be the most effective and easiest way to ensure protection. This could be achieved by pooling employee victims (and their respective earnings) without identifying employers. The process would have to be organized in such a fashion (perhaps administered by a non-governmental body) as to assure employers that their anonymity would be protected. Such a list would offer near complete protection for the employer and would be relatively easy to implement (requiring no additional agency approvals and minimal resources). The list wouldn't be complete and would be less authoritative than the formal documentation requested by the Fund, but it might provide the critical proof for some applicants. 2. Confidentiality. A promise of confidentiality would provide some comfort to employers if it were really possible to restrict the flow of information provided through the benefits process. However, there may be limits on your ability to avoid sharing information with other government agencies and employers may still be wary of leaks. 3. Immunity. Federal and local bodies commonly offer immunity from prosecution in exchange for important information and, given the importance of the issue, there ought to be some way to carve out protections in this case. Presumably, employers would only gain immunity from prosecutions arising from the information provided, but that should help encourage them to come forward. These are only partial remedies. Each presents its own set of complications. We offer them as possible parts of a package you are preparing aimed at ensuring compensation to those most in need of help. This is information worth struggling to obtain not only for purposes of the Fund, but in helping those simply seeking some confirmation about the fate of family members and/or seeking benefits from other sources. I hope that this is helpful to you. We look forward to seeing you in New York on March 19th. Thanks again for your interest and attention to these important issues. Best wishes, Comment by: Lawyers Committee for Human Rights New York, NY September 11 Email: Date The local time and date when the message was written. 2002-02-25 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 dojP000613.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. 2002-02-25