Stephen Push was shocked when the first e-mails arrived. The senders had seen him on television talking about his wife, who died in the Sept. 11 attack on the Pentagon, and the federal plan to compensate families of the victims.
"We feel your grief, really," the text of one e-mail read. "I'm just wondering if we have to feel your greed too?"
"If $1.6 million is not enough for you, I hope you rot in hell," another wrote.
How far the families of Sept. 11 have fallen. From their pedestals as the collateral casualties of the worst episode of mass murder in the United States, the objects of sympathy and the recipients of donations from millions of heartsick countrymen, they have toppled to become the object of scorn to many.
This backlash comes after many of the families criticized proposed rules for a federal victim compensation fund passed by Congress 10 days after hijacked planes crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and in a field in Pennsylvania. The fund, which promised compensation to anyone physically injured or the relatives of anyone killed, as long as the recipients waived their right to sue, was approved as part of a $15 billion airline bailout.
But some families argue that the federal plan, which is separate from the $1.5 billion in aid raised by private charities, could leave some of them with nothing or next to it.
And that's where things began to heat up.
Families of September 11 Inc., a group co-founded by Push, who lives in Great Falls, Va., has received dozens of nasty responses to its criticism, he said as have other victims' groups after their leaders spoke out against the fund's rules.
"The perception has gone from us generating all this sympathy to a situation where people think we are as greedy as a pack of wolves," said Anthony Gardner, chairman of the WTC United Family Group, based in New York.
Fund specifications
Last month the fund's overseer, Washington lawyer Kenneth Feinberg, issued a complex set of proposed rules governing payouts, which he has said could total $6 billion. The open-ended fund was designed to avert a flood of lawsuits against airlines over the Sept. 11 hijackings and to compensate those seriously injured and the families of those killed.
Feinberg has said that the average award would be about $1.65 million, tax-free. That's in addition to any assistance received from private charities.
However, the law setting up the federal fund requires that any payment to a family must be reduced by the amount of any life insurance, pension funds and government death benefits received.
Even so, the $1.65 million figure has planted itself in the public's mind, where it festered when the families started to complain.
Under Feinberg's formula, compensation for families of the dead is based on several variables, including lost earning power, age and number of dependents. Punitive damages were ruled out, but each family would receive $250,000 for the victim's pain and suffering, plus $50,000 for each surviving spouse and minor child.
But because of the required deductions, families whose loved ones carried hefty life insurance or had generous death benefits calculate that they would receive virtually nothing from the fund.
Caught in a dilemma
The families of Sept. 11 say they are caught in a dilemma. They can waive their right to sue and accept what the fund allows, without knowing exactly how much that will be beforehand and with little recourse; or they can take their chances in a protracted court fight with the airlines, whose liability for the attacks was limited by the legislation that set up the compensation fund.
This month, victims' advocacy groups held a rally in New York, attended by about 800 people, to press for changes before the fund regulations become final in a few weeks.
"What my mother is going through, what we're all going through, has nothing to do with money or figures," said WTC United's Gardner, whose brother Harvey died in the attack. "It has to do with justice."
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