Clarifying the Record The defense of U.S. airspace on 9/11 was not conducted in accord with preexisting training and protocols. It was improvised by civilians who had never handled a hijacked aircraft that attempted to disappear, and by a military unprepared for the transformation of commercial aircraft into weapons of mass destruction. As it turned out, the NEADS air defenders had nine minutes' notice on the first hijacked plane, no advance notice on the second, no advance notice on the third, and no advance notice on the fourth. We do not believe that the true picture of that morning reflects discredit on the operational personnel at NEADS or FAA facilities. NEADS commanders and officers actively sought out information, and made the best judgments they could on the basis of what they knew. Individual FAA controllers, facility managers, and Command Center managers thought outside the box in recommending a nationwide alert, in ground-stopping local traffic, and, ultimately, in deciding to land all aircraft and executing that unprecedented order flawlessly. More than the actual events, inaccurate government accounts of those events made it appear that the military was notified in time to respond to two of the hijackings, raising questions about the adequacy of the response. Those accounts had the effect of deflecting questions about the military's capacity to obtain timely and accurate information from its own sources. In addition, they overstated the FAA's ability to provide the military with timely and useful information that morning. In public testimony before this Commission in May 2003, NORAD officials stated that at 9:16, NEADS received hijack notification of United 93 from the FAA. This statement was incorrect. There was no hijack to report at 9:16. United 93 was proceeding normally at that time. In this same public testimony, NORAD officials stated that at 9:24, NEADS received notification of the hijacking of American 77. This statement was also incorrect. The notice NEADS received at 9:24 was that American 11 had not hit the World Trade Center and was heading for Washington, D.C. In their testimony and in other public accounts, NORAD officials also stated that the Langley fighters were scrambled to respond to the notifications about American 77,178 United 93, or both. These statements were incorrect as well. The fighters were scrambled because of the report that American 11 was heading south, as is clear not just from taped conversations at NEADS but also from taped conversations at FAA centers; contemporaneous logs compiled at NEADS, Continental Region headquarters, and NORAD; and other records.

Question: "Who handled the U.S. air defense on 9/11?"

OPTIONS:
- no
- yes

Answer: "11 was not conducted in accord with preexisting"

Response: no

Earth processes have not changed over time. The way things happen now is the same way things happened in the past. Mountains grow and mountains slowly wear away. The same process is at work the same as it was billions of years ago. As the environment changes, living creatures adapt. They change over time. Some organisms may not be able to adapt. They become extinct. Becoming extinct means they die out completely. Some geologists study the history of the Earth. They want to learn about Earths past. They use clues from rocks and fossils. They use these clues to make sense of events. The goal is to place things in the order they happened. They also want to know how long it took for those events to happen.

Question: "What happens to the living creature that fails to adapt to changes?"

Response: "They become extinct"
OPTIONS:
- no
- yes

A: yes

Michigan will lose $2 million in federal funding and $600,000 in state funding to provide legal aid to the poor in 2003, according to Deierdre L. Weir, executive director of the Legal Aid and Defender Association, Inc., the state's largest provider of legal services to the poor. Current federal funds of nearly $10.7 million from the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) will drop to $8.7 million for next year, according to Weir. She said that the reductions reflect a decline in the number of persons in the state who are living in poverty, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2000 census. LSC uses census data to determine funding across the nation, and according to the census, the state's poverty population fell from an estimated 1.2 million in 1990 to an estimated 968,000 in 2000. The state's legal aid agencies are also bracing for yet another cut in 2003 of some $600,000 of state funding. A portion of filing fees paid by litigants in the state's circuit courts, and a portion of interest on lawyers trust accounts (IOLTA) are earmarked for Michigan legal aid programs. These funds are expected to drop from currently $7.5 million in 2002 to $6.9 million when the Michigan State Bar Foundation makes distributions next year. Most of the decrease is attributed to the past year's low interest rates. "The irony of these funding cuts is that while there may be fewer poor people in Michigan today, the demand for service will not change because the poverty population remains so large and the legal aid funding so little that local providers will never able to serve all who need our service," said Weir. "It's as if the poor will be victimized twice-once for being poor and again as victims of these funding cuts." The U.S. Census Bureau, in spite of its best efforts, cannot locate every poor person living in a census tract, therefore the poor are also undercounted, added Weir. The brunt of these cuts will be felt most in Wayne County where according to the census some 333,000 poor people live, the largest concentration of poverty in the state. LAD will lose more than $870,000 for legal aid in Wayne County, nearly half of the state's total loss, said Weir. While difficult to measure, the loss of funds will mean that several thousand of Michigan's poor in need of legal service will not receive it, or they will receive significantly limited service. Cutbacks will include service in such civil legal matters as landlord-tenant, bankruptcy, consumer, child custody, predatory lending, mortgage foreclosure, utility shutoffs, social security, wills, and probate. "Local providers will have to work harder and smarter and use more technology instead of staff to provide as much service as we can with fewer dollars," said Weir. "We will be providing more selfhelp training to clients enabling them to navigate the legal system on their own in routine matters, more assistance on the telephone, and less direct representation by attorneys in specific, high impact matters. Currently, Michigan has 13 legal aid agencies covering the state's 83 counties.

Question: "What are the consequences of LAD funding cuts and who will be affected most?"

OPTIONS:
- no
- yes

Answer: "No change to services"

Response:
no