SEP. 5.2003 9=53flM DOT/OST/GEN COUNSEL NO.131 P.

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US. Department of
Transportation GENERAL COUNSEL 400 Seventh St., 3.W.
Office of ihe Secretary • Washington, D.c. aoseo
ofTtansportarion

September 5,2003

Mr. Daniel Marcus

General Counsel
National Commission on Terrorist Attacks
Upon the United States
301 7* Street, S.W., Room #5125
Washington, D.C. 20407

Dear Mr. Marcus

This is in response to Chair Kean and Vice Chair Hamilton's letter of August 19,
2003 to Secretary Mineta, concerning the efforts of the Department of Transportation (DOT)
to assist the Commission in carrying out its vitally important mandate. To date, DOT has
responded to all Commission requests for documents, briefings, and interviews, providing all
responsive materials that we have, under appropriate protective conditions as necessary.
Thus far, we have produced thousands of pages of documents and provided a number of
familiarization tours, briefings and other materials to your staff, We are currently in the
process of setting up interviews at nine air traffic control facilities around the country.

As you know, I have already responded to your August 26, 2003, memorandum on
"Most Important Overdxie Documents". We have provided all of the responsive documents
and have just concluded the process of reproducing the requested Hemdon ATCSCC tapes,
which are being provided to the Commission today.

I am confident that this cooperative relationship between the Commission and DOT
will continue as you proceed with your efforts. If I can provide further information or
assistance, please feel free to contact me.

Sincerely yours,

Rosalind A. Knapp
Deputy General Counsel
Thomas H. Kean August 19, 2003
CHAIR

Lee H. Hamilton
VICE CHAIR
The Honorable Norman Y. Mineta
Richard Ben-Veniste Secretary of Transportation
400 Seventh Street, SW
Max Cleland
Washington, DC 20590
Frederick F. Fielding
Dear Secretary Mineta:
Jamie S. Gorelick

Slade Gorton Public Law 107-306 directs the Commission to investigate the facts and
circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, including
John F. Lehman
the nation's preparedness for and immediate response to those attacks. We are
Timothy J. Roemer also mandated to identify and evaluate lessons learned and make
recommendations for the future. The statute authorizes the Commission to
James R. Thompson
secure needed information directly from any agency. The Commission has
thus made numerous requests for documents and discussions with officials
Philip D. Zelikow
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
from your department. Given the extraordinary character of the 9/11 events
and our mandate, the scope and sensitivity of our requests have few, if any,
precedents.

We are therefore all the more grateful for the efforts you and your colleagues
have made so far to deal with our many, necessary requests. With so many
other issues confronting you and your staff, we do understand how hard this
can be. We try to make appropriate allowances when we know people are
doing their best. In July the Commission issued an interim report on our
progress so far. In that report we said the coming weeks would be critical.
We promised another report in September that would appraise whether the
level of voluntary cooperation is sufficient so that we will be able tcnio the job
we are charged to do under the statute.

That time is now approaching. You are entitled to some advance notice of
what we need. To make such a decisive appraisal and properly evaluate your
department's cooperation, we will assess:

1. Your policy choices—one way or another—on every access issue posed by

our pending requests.

2. Whether we actually receive the most important categories of documents

that are already overdue. We will follow up to be sure our points of
contact know which overdue documents we regard as litmus tests for
effective cooperation.
301 7'h Street SW, Room 5125
Washington, DC 20407
T 202.331.4060 F 202.296.5545
www.9-1 lcommission.gov
The Honorable Norman Y. Mineta
August 19, 2003
Page 2

We understand that you and your staff may need a few more weeks to finalize
policy choices and push through delivery of key documents. Therefore we
think it is reasonable to wait and assess the situation based on positions
communicated with us and documents that have actually been delivered or
otherwise made available to us by COB on Friday, September 5, 2003.

As the second anniversary of the devastating attacks on our country

approaches, we thank you for working with us to meet the challenge of
understanding how and why America suffered such a devastating attack, and
how to prevent another.

Sincerely,

Thomas H. Kean Lee H. Hamilton

Chair Vice Chair

cc: Rosalind A. Knapp