litigation

Where's the 9/11 Public Archive?

As the last of the litigation resulting from the September 11, 2001 attacks comes to a close, now is the time to capture the tremendous amount of information about aviation insecurity in the lead up to 9/11 which has been revealed as a result of legal discovery.

The Motley Rice law firm, which represented the majority of the wrongful death plaintiffs, spoke about creating a 9/11 Public Archive which would incorporate pertinent discovery information. It has been over two years since the last wrongful death case settled and we have yet to see that archive come to fruition. It is still a good idea.

You've asked for NIST accountability - Here is your chance

Dr. William Pepper in Times Square on September 11, 2013, as a featured guest speaker for AE911Truth and ReThink911.org

Did you know 2013 was a breakthrough year in our efforts to hold NIST accountable?

For years we have known that Building 7 came down in free-fall and that the NIST report failed to explain why. We knew that NIST’s collapse model looked nothing like the actual collapse, and that NIST’s “probable collapse sequence” was anything but probable.

But in 2013, NIST’s explanation went from highly improbable to absolutely impossible, thanks to the discovery that NIST deliberately omitted critical structural features from its model – features that make the supposed collapse initiation impossible. With this new discovery, we have the evidence to prove definitively that Building 7 could not have collapsed as NIST says it did.

9/11 Justice Delayed is Justice Denied

On July 23, 2010 Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein published an order terminating motions in the 9/11 wrongful death cases of Barbara Keating and Sara Low.

After languishing in his court for years and being told by their attorneys that they had almost no chance of getting a trial on liability, a proposed settlement was proffered in Keating v. American Airlines, Inc. and Low v. U.S. Airways, Inc. Unfortunately the good judge essentially sat on the motions for several months, neither ruling for or against them.

Can you imagine how the Keating and Low families felt? After all this time a settlement is finally agreed upon by both the plaintiffs and the defendants and what does Hellerstein do? Nothing! He simply refuses to rule either way.

It was not a case of the plaintiffs withdrawing before approval could be granted. Rather, it was that approval, nor for that matter disapproval, was simply not forthcoming. After twisting in the wind for so long and having all their efforts to establish a public archive squashed, the Low family, in particular, was devastated.

9/11 Transparency Muzzled

Bruce Golding of the New York Post has done a good job of reporting on the 9/11 property damage litigation, with the exception of addressing the issue of transparency, or more correctly, the lack thereof.

On July 1, 2010 Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein issued an order granting a joint motion approving property damage settlements in 18 of 21 cases asserting property damage claims from the September 11, 2001 attack. The proposed amount , $1.2 billion, represents a 72% discount from the settling plaintiffs' total claimed damages of $4.4 billion.

The payouts are on hold pending a legal challenge by developer Larry Silverstein who's seeking $12 billion for his WTC losses. He didn't join in the settlement, which he said was "shrouded in secrecy" and involved "collusive" deals struck by insurers with interests on both sides of the table.

In a separate order, signed by Judge Hellerstein on the same day, he resolved the intervenor's motion to unseal documents. The New York Times had moved to unseal, and thereby make public, the motion filed to approve the property settlement.

9/11's False Elvis

The New York Times recently published a profile of Alvin K. Hellerstein, the judge charged with overseeing the litigation stemming from the 9/11 World Trade Center attack. In it the judge was cited for his empathy towards the victims’ families and his commitment to transparency, when in fact just the opposite has been true in the wrongful death cases. One WTC responder has even gone so far as to glowingly refer to Hellerstein as the “Elvis of the 9/11 community.”

Legal experts believe that the judge may see his handling of the 9/11 litigation as his legacy. There is evidence to support that when you see how often he has been cited in the press, saying that he has a very strong policy in favor of public records and accountability. He’s also said, with reference to the property cases, that he would prefer more open records and that he might even consider unsealing them.

It would appear that the good judge certainly talks the talk, but does he walk the walk or do his rulings reveal that his comments are more specious rhetoric than a true commitment to transparency?

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