Sybase Advertises 'PATRIOTcompliance'

xmtrx writes "While everyone is rabidly pouncing, pounding and going pundit on Palladium, little-to-no attention is being paid to enterprise-class spyware such as Sybase's PATRIOTcompliance Solution. Their ad includes such gems as "Non-compliance is not an option" and "...helps you satisfy the many integration requirements of the USA PATRIOT Act by... filtering your customers, employees and suppliers against known suspects, and then... continuously monitoring their future activities." No punchline." The laws passed which affect financial institutions are mostly opaque to Joe Citizen. Sybase's press release sheds a little bit of light on what is going on behind the scenes.

Re:Laws are Passed by Congress

[jd142]

Actually all presidents have used the power of the Executive Order. It bypasses congress and allows the president to a law. For example, Bill Clinton executed an executive order lowering the allowed level of arsenic in drinking water. Bush changed that order. President Bush issued an executive order that contradicted the 1978 Presidential Records Act, a law passed by congress. The law would have required records of the Reagan White House to be released 12 years after that president left office. Bush also used an executive order to establish the office of homeland security. So parts of Bush's "anti-terrorism" package were enacted through what amounts to presidential fiat, the executive order. The next president will obviously be able to undo any and all presidential orders, just each congress can repeal the laws passed by the previous congress. I believe executive orders can also be ruled unconsitutional.

I am sure Clinton signed some executive orders I disagree with and I'm sure Bush must have signed some I agree with, but these examples were both in the news at the time and they are the ones I remember.

For more information about the checks and balances of the American government, check out your local library or go on-line and visit:

• http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/weekly/aa121897 .htm [about.com]
• http://www.infoplease.com/ipd/A0431503.html [infoplease.com]
• http://www.loc.gov/law/guide/usexec.html [loc.gov]
• http://www.sonic.net/sentinel/gvcon5.html - for a view opposing the executive order power [sonic.net]

And that's One to Grow On.

Re:American Citizen's option

[Moofie]

Yup. To make it mo' bettah, any time you carry a significant amount of cash, the DEA can sieze it without due process on the assumption that you're dealing drugs. Good luck getting it back.

More:

http://www.libertarianworld.com/Property-Seizure -R ights.html

http://www.geocities.com/rab_cdg1/jones.htm