Nessa semana vimos duas cartas bem interessantes, que merecem ser compartilhadas.

A primeira é da Apple. A companhia escreveu uma carta aberta a todos seus consumidores contra a solicitação do governo americano para “hackear” iPhones no caso de San Bernardino. O final da carta merece destaque:

The government would have us remove security features and add new capabilities to the operating system, allowing a passcode to be input electronically. This would make it easier to unlock an iPhone by “brute force,” trying thousands or millions of combinations with the speed of a modern computer.

The implications of the government’s demands are chilling. If the government can use the All Writs Act to make it easier to unlock your iPhone, it would have the power to reach into anyone’s device to capture their data. The government could extend this breach of privacy and demand that Apple build surveillance software to intercept your messages, access your health records or financial data, track your location, or even access your phone’s microphone or camera without your knowledge.

Opposing this order is not something we take lightly. We feel we must speak up in the face of what we see as an overreach by the U.S. government.

We are challenging the FBI’s demands with the deepest respect for American democracy and a love of our country. We believe it would be in the best interest of everyone to step back and consider the implications.

While we believe the FBI’s intentions are good, it would be wrong for the government to force us to build a backdoor into our products. And ultimately, we fear that this demand would undermine the very freedoms and liberty our government is meant to protect.

Já a outra carta foi escrita por diversos economistas democratas — conselheiros de Obama e Clinton — ao candidato presidencial Bernie Sanders e o economista Gerald Friedman. A carta critica as previsões demasiadamente “otimistas” caso as políticas de Sanders sejam adotadas, tais como: “Median income would soar by more than $22,000. Nearly 26 million jobs would be created. The unemployment rate would fall to 3.8%.”

Um trecho da carta que merece destaque:

Friedman asserts that your plan will have huge beneficial impacts on growth rates, income and employment that exceed even the most grandiose predictions by Republicans about the impact of their tax cut proposals […] As much as we wish it were so, no credible economic research supports economic impacts of these magnitudes.