May 8, 2003

Thomas H. Kean Dear Members of the Family Steering Committee:

CHAIR

Lee H. Hamilton
VICE CHAIR We believe the Commission's meeting with you on May 1, 2003 was a
Richard Ben-Veniste
highly productive one. We appreciated the opportunity to meet with you
and to respond both to questions submitted beforehand as well as those
Max Cleland raised in the course of our nearly two hour meeting.
Fred F. Fielding
As we indicated to you, we remain available and would be pleased to
Jamie S. Gorelick meet with you again at a mutually agreeable time and place, so that we
Slade Gorton can continue to keep you informed of the Commission's work. To that
end, we would like to invite you to a meeting with Tom Kean and a
John Lehman
number of staff, from 2 - 3 PM on May 15, 2003, at Mead Hall, Drew
Timothy J. Roemer University, in Madison, NJ.
James R. Thompson
Input from the families is critically important to us. For example, copies
of documents from the Hamburg trial are an immediate, significant
Philip D. ZeUkow
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR contribution to our work. We also want to thank you for the opportunity
to review minutes, as you recorded them, of the May 1,2003 meeting.

While we believe that it is useful to have a sense of your questions prior

to meetings, we continue to believe that it is most useful to engage
directly with you in dialogue. We find the process of response to written
interrogatories less helpful in fostering and continuing the positive
dialogue that is so important on behalf of our shared goal: the fulfillment
of the Commission's mandate.

Joint Inquiry (JI) information. Commissioners are fully aware of the

Commission's mandate to build upon the work of the JI. Commissioners
and staff are reading the JI report and related documents as part of then-
work. All Commissioners have access to the entirety of the JI Report and
all information compiled by the JI. The Commission also takes very
seriously its mandate to review Congressional oversight and resource
allocation.

Intelligence agencies. We have reached out to key intelligence agencies

and the interactions have been positive. Agencies have been responsive
so far to document and access requests. We believe we will get the
information we need. We have assembled extensive lists of individuals
we intend to interview.

Non-classified areas of investigation. We have established very good

points of contact with several Federal agencies outside of the intelligence
TEL (202) 331-4060
FAX (202) 296-5545
www.9-11 commission.gov
Family Steering Committee
May 8, 2003
Page 2

community, and have already initiated a number of document requests.

We have established points of contact with New York entities, and will
soon be doing.so with the airlines. Our next hearing, May 22 - 23, will
take up the topic of aviation, and several individuals both inside and
outside the government will be asked to testify on aviation security
issues. We believe strongly that interviews—essential to the work of the
Commission—must follow careful preparation, and we expect to begin
them soon.

Commission structure. We are keenly aware of the importance of

strong internal communication within the Commission staff. The senior
managers understand it is their job to insure the staff work together with
an effective, productive division of labor among the teams. We are
satisfied with their progress in uniting and directing this work.

We are unaware of any requirement of outside counsel for potential

witnesses and interview candidates. We will work to avoid delays in our
investigative work.

The Commission has made no decisions about the structure of its final
report. Your reference to a book must be alluding to the report itself; we
know of no other planned book connected to our work.

Staff names have been made available to you; please feel free to reach us
through the Front Office and/or the family liaison staff that will be named
soon.

In closing, we thank you for your continued willingness to bring

information to the attention of the Commission, your strong support, and
your helpful suggestions. We hope that you will join us on May 15.
Please contact Stephanie Kaplan at (202) 331-4060 or skaplan@9-
llcommission.gov to make the appropriate arrangements.

With best regards,

Thomas H. Kean Lee H. Hamilton

Chair Vice Chair
May 5, 2003

Dear Governor Kean, Congressman Hamilton, Commissioners and Staff,

Thank you for meeting with us last Thursday afternoon and for taking the time to respond
to the questions we had submitted earlier.

As a result of our meeting, however, additional questions have been raised. We would
appreciate a response to these additional concerns:

Joint Inquiry Information

1. How many Commissioners have read the classified Joint Inquiry Report in its
entirety? How many Staff members have read the classified Joint Inquiry Report
in its entirety? (Prior to reading all 500,000 pages of the Joint Inquiry documents,
it seems logical to read the Joint Inquiry's full report since the independent
commission's mandate is to "build upon" the Joint Inquiry's work—not
unnecessarily duplicate it).
2. How many Commissioners have read the 150 interview reports supplied by the
Joint Inquiry in their entirety?
3. How many Staff members have read the 150 interview reports in their entirety?
4. Have you formulated any leads or investigative roadmaps from either the
classified Joint Inquiry Report or the 150 interview reports? Have those leads
been acted upon?
5. Regarding the 500,000 pages of documents from the Joint Inquiry, when will you
request each agency's log of what documents were either reviewed or submitted
to the Joint Inquiry? Isn't each agency required to maintain a log of all documents
produced for the JIC?
6. What is the commission's position with regard to assertions of congressional
privilege on the part of any congressman, staffer, and/or committee made in
response to an inquiry by the Commission? Congressional oversight is an integral
part of the Commission's mandate and must be addressed thoroughly and
expeditiously.
7. The FSC continues to be concerned about the precedent created by allowing the
submission of redacted documents to the JIC. All commissioners have top
security clearances and are tasked with using the JIC's work as a starting point.
Without full and open disclosure by the JIC, one is made to wonder what is being
hidden and what message this sends to other congressional committees of whom
similar requests will be made by the Commission in the future.

Intelligence Agencies

1. Have you reached out to each intelligence agency and provided them with lists of
information and documents needed? What agencies have replied? What agencies
 have met any of your requests? If agencies do not meet your requests, what do
you plan to do?
2. Have you determined a list of witnesses to testify from the intelligence agencies?
Are you planning to issue any requests for depositions? If so, have you done so
yet? If not, why not?

Non-classified/Non-privileged areas of investigation

1. Regarding areas of non-classified information and/or areas that the Joint Inquiry
did not investigate (therefore, areas that are not being held up by congressional
privilege or executive privilege), what work has been done? For example, have
you served interrogatories to the FAA, INS, Port Authority, City of NY,
Department of Transportation, or the airlines? Have you submitted any deposition
requests to those agencies? Have you conducted any interviews? Have you
requested any individual's attendance for a future hearing? If not, why not?

Commission's Structure/ Misc.

1. Because the commission staff has varying levels of clearance, what mechanism do
you have in place to ensure that the investigation itself does not suffer from
fragmentation? For example, how can each staff member see the overall picture of
the failures on 9/11 (a necessary component to conduct a thorough and effective
investigation) if they are only allowed to read certain fragments of the Joint
Inquiry's final report? What safeguards are in place to ensure the "dots" of your
investigation are connected?
2. Have you spoken to the White House to gain their acquiescence to expedite all
requests for clearances for outside attorneys who may have to represent
individuals who are requested by you to testify, answer interrogatories, or be
deposed? Clearances can take upwards of 6 months, we want to ensure that
anyone whom the commission wants to testify, depose or answer interrogatories
can do so in a timely manner. What have you done to plan for this possible delay?
3. We have read in the press that the Commission will be publishing a book after the
investigation is complete. Is this true? If so, what is the purpose of this book?
Does this pose a possible conflict of interest for Commission members?
4. We would like to receive a list of all staff and Commissioner assignments.
Additionally, we would like to have staff contact phone numbers and email
addresses. We have received numerous requests from the public about forwarding
specific information to the commission, and we would like to be able to satisfy
these requests.
5. We would like to receive a list of all individuals who will testify, be deposed, or
be served with interrogatories. In providing this list to us, we will be able to
conduct our own research on these individuals, formulate our own list of
questions and concerns, and then share this information with you, so as to ensure
that a comprehensive examination is done.
 6. Regarding the investigation, we respectfully suggest that you not completely
focus on the top-level individuals of agencies and institutions (Director of the
CIA, Secretary of Transportation, Secretary of Defense, Mayor of NYC). Lower-
level employees (field agents, air traffic controllers, air force lieutenants, NYFD
lieutenants, etc.) can yield fruitful information. Recall the Phoenix Memo and the
Moussouai case. Valuable information can be obtained from field operatives, staff
and mid-level managers. Information they provide can then be used to question
higher-level individuals. In this way, accountability can be more accurately
assigned.

We continue to be frustrated with the slow progress of this Commission. Although we

acknowledge that the start-up for any commission can be a slow process, we also know
the Joint Intelligence Committee faced problems due to time constraints and in fact were
unable to complete their work. Thus, there is an urgent need begin requesting documents
and conducting interviews. One of our greatest concerns is that the commission will run
out of time.

We look forward to your collective response.

Very truly yours,

The Family Steering Committee