Dear Madame/Mr. President:

Hi, I live in Arvada, Colorado and I attend Wheat Ridge High School where I am a senior and I am going to graduate on May 19th, 2017. I am writing you to talk about some problems that I have and ones that I feel should be solved sooner than later. The things that I have a problem with are the NSA spy program and the death penalty. The whole world has known all about the NSA secretly spying on U.S. citizens ever since Edward Snowden leaked all the information about it back in 2013. It is really weird to know that people are spying on us and looking at all we do on the :Internet, but it is for the protection of the citizens. I wonder how long they had been doing it before all the information was leaked and we found out about what was being done? Also the death penalty is another issue I have. It can be traced back to the 1700’s and it has been used as a way to punish someone for the crimes that they have committed. A movie that talks a lot about the death penalty is “Green Mile” with Tom Hanks. This movie is about prisoners, or people, that are in a prison awaiting to be put to death by lethal injection. This is really a good movie having to do with this subject. But these are some problems that I have with the United States and feel that they should be addressed.

These are problems I have because it may not seem like they need to be dealt with, but if we don’t do anything about them, they could possibly become a bigger problem than they already are. But let me start by talking about the NSA spying and how this has affected our nation. Before Snowden told the world all about it, we had no idea that this type of thing was going on, But now that we know it is happening, it is kind of weird to think that someone could possibly have an eye on us at all times of the day. It puts people on the edge about what they do, why they do it and who they do it with, Some people would view Snowden as a hero and others would call him a traitor to his country. It just depends on the way that you view things that happen in the world and the viewpoints you have. I feel that this was a major problem around the time that we found out about it and it is not really talked about now that Snowden has taken refuge in another continent. But I feel that this is a problem that needs to be solved and it should be talked about at sometime.

Now the death penalty has been around since the 1700’s and it has been a valid way to deal with someone who has committed a heinous crime, even though some people do not feel it is a good punishment. I do think people would have a different view on it depending on who they are and what they have been through. People seeing others put to death for a crime might not feel the same way as someone who is seeing the person who killed one of their loved ones put to death. It is just a different view for everyone. After losing a loved one or someone that you knew, you would definitely want that person to suffer and live with what they have done. So I think it just depends on who you are in the case and how it has changed your life. The death penalty should only be used in some cases where many people were killed and it should be debated in a smaller case.

To deal with these problems that I have, the government should reevaluate these things to see if they are good things to have for us. They should be voted on to see how many people still want these things in their life and if they are a good thing for this nation. These are big problems because I can tell that many people will have many different views on these topics because they could have affected them at sometime or another. People have so many different opinions on these topics and some feel that they should stay or be gotten rid of. These are all different opinions that they have and everyone has different thoughts about these things. Some may view them as helpful and necessary to the way we live our lives and some would say that they ruin our lives and make change us from who we should be.

Sincerely,

Elijah