Press conference featuring 9/11 victims’ family members ignored by media

Julie Sweeney's voice wavered on the verge of breaking as she addressed those gathered at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

"I don't want anybody to ever deal with the phone call I dealt with at 8:58 that morning from my husband from United [Flight] 175, saying goodbye."

Sweeney was one of a number of family members of the victims of 9/11, along with their lawyers, independent researchers, and members of the media who gathered on June 10 to mark the launch of UnansweredQuestions.org. The web site, co-founded by Tom Flocco and Kyle F. Hence, is dedicated to giving voice to the unanswered questions of 9/11, and demanding their answers.

The conference also gave voice to the concerns of the victims' families, concerns that have been largely ignored by the mainstream media. C-SPAN, in violation of their own policy regarding major news conferences at the National Press Club, declined to even tape the event for possible future broadcast.

The idea for the press conference was born when Hence, an independent researcher and writer, judged the timing was right following news of the Phoenix and Minneapolis FBI memos, and the disturbing warnings in the August 7th briefing of the President. Influenced also by a call by victims' families to hold a rally in D.C. in support of an Independent Commission, Hence called Flocco, for whom he had done research on insider trading and who had contact with lawyers for the victims' families.

Flocco then telephoned Catherine Austin Fitts, former Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under the first Bush administration. Fitts is now a financial analyst and independent journalist who has written several articles related to 9/11, including "The Real Deal on 9/11: Rewarding Failure