Policies
The short version: write under a made-up name, keep identifying details out, and know that a person reads every letter before it goes live.
What makes a good letter
Write to the president, but for the public. The best letters are specific: something that happened to you, what your days are like, what you'd change and why. A few hundred to about a thousand words is a good length. You don't need to be polished. Your own voice is the point.
Pseudonyms
Your pseudonym is the only name we ever publish. Please leave your real name out of the letter, along with details that could point to you: your employer, your street, your school, the names of people around you. A pseudonym only protects you if the details don't give you away. "I'm an immigrant" is fine. "I'm an immigrant working at the McDonald's on Wall Street" points to one person.
Your email
We ask for your email only so the editor can reach you. It is never published and never shared. It's stored only on the small server that runs this site, and it's deleted about 5 days after your letter is published or declined.
Follow-up from the editor
The editor may email you before publishing: to confirm a detail, answer a question, or point out something that might identify you and ask whether you'd like it blurred. Nothing is changed without your okay.
Decisions
The editor can decline a letter or ask for changes. Not every letter will be published. Letters that name real people, or make serious accusations, are handled case by case.
Where letters go
Letters are not delivered to the president. They're published here for the general public to read.
How letters are screened
An AI model reads each letter and flags three things: whether it looks like spam, whether it contains details that could identify you, and how strong it is as a letter. It never publishes or rejects anything. The editor reads every letter and makes every decision.
This model is an outside service. Letters are read by Claude, an AI model made by Anthropic, reached through a service called OpenRouter. Only the text of your letter is sent. Your email and pseudonym are never sent. Everything else, including your email, stays on the small server that runs this site.
If we change which outside services read letters, this page will be updated before it happens.