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.

Comments

Banks and Brokers

[N8F8]

Compliance with the Act is required for Banks and Brokers by October 2002; non-compliance could lead to costly civil and criminal penalties.

With extra power comes extra responsability.

Re:American Citizen's option

[blowdart]

You know that in Europe banks have to report cash transactions over a certain size, and other "suspicous activities" to law enforcement? Europe already has that sort of "monitoring" in place to stop money laundering.

"Non-compliance is not an option"

[Qender]

We are the Borg, your species will be assimilated. Non-compliance is not an option.

We will add your biological and technological
distinctiveness to our own, however your technological distinctiveness will be filtered against our database and monitored.

Don't buy it......

[mickwd]

If your don't like this sort of stuff, stop buying (or considering) stuff from Sybase.

And let them know your doing this.

And why.

Re:Don't buy it......

[nosphalot]

But what about when my bank buys it? Or the bank that my employer uses buys it? Let me guess, I should change banks and then get a different job. Do you even know what software your bank uses? I don't, and I doubt they would tell me if asked.

Re:Open Source could be next

[blowdart]

OK how would open source help here?

The banks and brokers are being forced to do this by October. They don't have a choice.

So, what, if they use open source they won't have to? Is that your point? It may be more difficult to put that crap in, but
a) Sybase arent hiding it
b) That crap HAS to go in.

Not So Bad

[m_evanchik]

While theoretically troubling, this really isn't that horrific. The Federal Government just doesn't have the resources to persecute a lot of people. There have been various reporting requirements on financial transactions for quite a while. These new requirements are not coming out of the blue.

People also tend to forget that we are fighting a war. It's fine to be snide and cynical, but American troops are in combat abroad right now.

That all being said, I doubt these reporting requirements will do much to stop terrorism. The evidence is mounting that our failure to stop past terrorism was not due to a lack of power or resources, but due to ineffective leadership and incompetence. All the information in the world won't help our government agencies who in the past have shown a frightening lack of intelligence.

And I don't trust Ashcroft. He's grandstanding to score political points without actually achieving any worthwhile results. Of all the thousands of suspects rounded up and detained on suspicion of terrorism, only a handful have been charged with anything terrorist related, and all of those charged are pretty much low-level dupes (Lindh, Massaoui (sp?), etc.).

Let's face it, anyone competent enough to pull off a real terrorist attack is also probably competent enough to know about and know how to circumvent these reporting requirements. The only people caught by these new rules will be the stupid and the uninformed, both of which may be up to no good, or more likely just unaware that they are doing anything wrong.

Our country is at war and it is deadly serious. I just wonder if our biggest impediment to victory might be certain political hacks like Ashcroft who now find themselves in positions of unexpected power, with the ability to further agendas beside winning the war on terrorism.

Maybe we all ought to start exercising our Second Amendment rights, which seems to be the only ones he finds sacrosanct.

Come and get me coppers!

(Huh? What's that knocking on the door?) = ^ &

Re:Not So Bad

[Lordfly]

1) We're not at war. Congress never declared war. Congress MUST declare an act of war against a country in order to be in a state of war. Simply saying ad nauseum in speech rhetoric about the "war on terrorism" does not make the nation at war.

2) Ashcroft is quite possibly the scariest person alive, in my opinion. He might be grandstanding, but his actions since taking office has shown to me that he would rather just throw away the Constitution; makes his life easier.

3) American troops have been in "combat" for like the past 20 years, doing "peacekeeping" missions. That doesn't change the fact that the PATRIOT bill infringes upon your privacy hardcore.

I'm really quite sick of people saying that "dammit, we're in a war, stop badmouthing the government or else." Who are we fighting, exactly?

Too bad everyone's too busy following the government's lead to really do anything.

*reads post over*

Man, I sound like a conspiracy theorist at 8 in the morning :)

Lordfly

Re:Not So Bad

[m_evanchik]

Congress does not need to make an explicit resolution for us to be in a state of war.

Since WWII, the US has not made a formal declaration of war. We still, very rightly, give the name of "war" to the conflicts in Kuwait, Korea and Vietnam.

Granted, knowing exactly who to fight is a tricky question. We do, however, know that we have been attacked. The Twin Towers did not fall over on their own.

I believe in the good faith of our government, even of men like Ashcroft. I just wonder at their judgement and competence.

It is a losing argument to say there are not compelling reasons for vigilance since 9/11. The most effective argument against increased government surveillance is that it is counter-productive.

There is an enemy, the proof of that is the rubble cleaned from downtown Manhattan. The elusive nature of that enemy requires intelligence to combat. Intelligence does not only come from increased information. I am afraid that too much energy is being spent on gathering vast amounts of useless data.

Don't argue the existence of the conflict, argue that the war is being ineffectively fought on the home front.

Re:Not So Bad

[thales]

"We're not at war. Congress never declared war. Congress MUST declare an act of war against a country in order to be in a state of war. Simply saying ad nauseum in speech rhetoric about the "war on terrorism" does not make the nation at war."

ad nauseum denials that the resoulation congress passed authorizing the war on terror dosen't mean that the US isn't in a state of war simply because the words declration of war were absent. There wasn't a nation of Al Qaeda to issuse a formal declration against, nor was it clear which nations are supporting Al Qaeda.

The Resoulation-
JOINT RESOLUTION

To authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against those responsible for the recent attacks launched against the United States.

Whereas on September 11, 2001, acts of treacherous violence were committed against the United States and its citizens;

Whereas such acts render it both necessary and appropriate that the United States exercise its rights to self-defense and to protect United States citizens both at home and abroad;

Whereas in light of the threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States posed by these grave acts of violence;

Whereas such acts continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States; and

Whereas the President has authority under the Constitution to take action to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism against the United States; Now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This joint resolution may be cited as the `Authorization for Use of Military Force'.

SEC. 2. AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES.

(a) That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.

(b) War Powers Resolution Requirements-

(1) SPECIFIC STATUTORY AUTHORIZATION- Consistent with section 8(a)(1) of the War Powers Resolution, the Congress declares that this section is intended to constitute specific statutory authorization within the meaning of section 5(b) of the War Powers Resolution.

(2) APPLICABILITY OF OTHER REQUIREMENTS- Nothing in this resolution supercedes any requirement of the War Powers Resolution.

Take careful note that this was passed under authority of the War Powers Resolution. The attacks on September 11 were also declared an act of War by the NATO alliance triggering sections of the mutal defense treaty against an attack on a member nations home territory.

The idea that a formal declration has to be passed by Congress is rather new. There was no resoulation passed containing the words "declration of war" during the Naval war with France, The war against the Barbry states, The various Indian wars, The US Civil War, The Philipine insurrection, The Korean War, or the Viet Nam War, rather there were resoulations authorizing the wars passed by Congress as per the Constitution.

The war on Terror is simply the latest in a series of wars that the USA has fought with the authorization of Congress. Article 1 section 8 of the US Constitution gives Congress the power to "To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;" but does require that a resoulation declaring war follow any specific format, and the resoulation regarding the present war follows the precedents set in authorizing past wars.

Re:Not So Bad

[GigsVT]

The Federal Government just doesn't have the resources to persecute a lot of people.

Trying to avoid Godwin's here, but it's hard.

What are you smoking? The US government has a budget of over 2 trillion dollars a year. Do you have any concept of how much money that is?

If every byte on your hard disk were one dollar, it would be 2 terabytes.

If you wanted to count that much money, counting 1 dollar bill per second, it would take about 64 thousand years.

It's 2 million million dollars.

So year, they have enough resources to throw the whole IT industry in jail on a whim, or to say... throw all of any religion they don't like into jail.

Re:Not So Bad

[be-fan]

Death is preferable to moral bankruptcy. The minute we decide that security is preferable to ethical behavior, we lose the right to say we are the greatest democracy in the world.

Re:Not So Bad

[Glytch]

And the hell of it is that most of those hijackers weren't even from Afganistan. They were from Saudi Arabia. Afganistan just happens to be a conveniently located, militarily-weak country for President Cheney's oil company to run a pipeline through once a puppet government was set up.

Granted, the Taliban weren't exactly on Amnesty International's best-loved list, but the ends don't justify the means.

Re:Not So Bad

[m_evanchik]

For all the money the federal government spends, it is widely dispersed and little of it is discretionary.

For a somewhat detailed accounting of the federal budget, go here or here.

For a bird's eye view, go here

Of that 2 thousand thousand thousand thousand dollars, about 30 thousand thousand thousand dollars can go under the general heading of "administration of justice".

So there are not unlimited funds available.

Just look at the case against Lindh. Here was a guy, caught red-handed fighting for the Taliban. THe Attorney General publically villifies him, and the Justice department has to settle for a plea bargain on technicalities.

The government has great power and there is potential for abuse of that power, but it is nowhere near omnipotent.

Re:Not So Bad

[be-fan]

I'm not necessarily saying that the U.S. is the greatest. It's my country so I've got a bit of a bias. But at least right now we're in the running :)

Re:Not So Bad

[m_evanchik]

The military gets about 15% ($300 billion) of the federal budget. Most of these moneys go to paying soldiers salaries and benefits or to weapons systems unsuited to quelling domestic disturbance.

I don't see the US military getting involved in quelling dissenters to any considerable degree. This is not South America.

There have been instances where US National Guard troops have responded to domestic rioters or dissenters. These instances (Kent State, LA OJ Simpson Riots, "Bonus Army" riots in 1932 (scroll down)) have been of limited scope and usually warranted.

I'm not worried about US troops being used for wholesale domestic pacification. We're not anywhere close to having to worry about such a scenario.

Re:Not So Bad

[m_evanchik]

I was actually thinking of including this one in the list I made earlier.

This episode is not terribly alarming.

Firstly, the troops were there for a "good cause": letting some black kids go to a white school.

Also, the federal troops where only called in after the governor sent in National Guard troops (supposedky to stop rioting by white mobs), a presence that was later countermanded by a federal judge.

So I don't think this episode indicates that our civil liberties are endangered by the armed forces.

In fact, this epidode shows that federal troops can be important in protecting our civil liberties, unless you are a white racist from Arkansas :~|

Re:Not So Bad

[bungo]

Right on!

Freedom or death!

Umm... of course, it would be ok if it's your death? I mean, I'm all for retoric and all that, it's just that I'm rather attached to life, so if someone has to die for this, I'd prefer it was you, not me.

I have other causes for which I'm willing to die for, like saving the Earth from intergalatic space aliens. So, if it's ok with you, could you be the one that dies, preferable a horrible, painfull public death - all the better for the cause.

What, you didn't really mean it? You're not willing to die for my rights?

Bugger.

Do you know someone else who will?

This is starting to get out of hand...

[ivpiter]

Although in troubled times restrictions are necessary I fully believe that "In times of emergency, restrictions on the freedom of the individual and imposed in the real or assumed interest of the community. We hold it to be essential that such restrictions be confined to a minimum of clearly specified actions ; that they be understood to be temporary and limited expedients in the nature of a sacrafice ; and that the measures restricting freedom be themseles subject to the free criticism and democratic control . Only thus can we have a reasonable assurance that emergency measures restricting individual freedom will not be degenerate into a permanent tyranny." - sec. 7 of the manifesto of the Congress for Cultural Freedom published in 1951 In was true then and it is true now. The steps of government and corporations that seek to influence the gov be be in the light, and not hidden, espically under the guise of "protecting the people". Peace folks,

Re:This is starting to get out of hand...

[Angry Toad]

Indeed. That's what I personally find so scary about all of this. Of course we have to be more vigilant right now - anyone who doesn't think there's a truly serious threat is deluding themselves, and it is pretty hard to come down against the government for making changes that allow them to more easily track down the bad guys.

That being said, where is the out? The War Against Terror will never be over, because terror (read: asymmetrical warfare) is the weapon of the disempowered against the powerful. As long as literally billions of people on the planet don't have clean drinking water, let alone access to education and so on, then there will be an endless supply of rage to feed the other end of the process.

They have us between a rock and a hard place - it is very hard to argue against harsh measures to weed out the terrorists ("but why do you want to make things easy for them?") but on the other hand that means we're supporting the creation of a de facto police state (and I don't think that's entirely hyperbole) with no discernable way of ever getting things back to normal again.

After all, politicians just love to give up power once they have it.

Re:This is starting to get out of hand...

[DreamingReal]

Of course we have to be more vigilant right now - anyone who doesn't think there's a truly serious threat is deluding themselves, and it is pretty hard to come down against the government for making changes that allow them to more easily track down the bad guys.

I am more vigilant now as there is a serious threat - I am watching my government more closely than I ever have because the threat they pose to my liberty has never been greater.

As horrific as watching planes crash into towers is, I would rather ride a crumbling building down 100 stories than live in the United Police State of America.

Re:This is starting to get out of hand...

[Malcontent]

Define "emergency". We were attacked by terrorists that's true. About three thousand people died and that's tragic. None of this is enough of an "emergency" to warrant a reduction in freedom. More then three thousand people die every week from smoking, car accidents etc.

Re:This is starting to get out of hand...

[Myco]

"The War Against Terror will never be over, because terror (read: asymmetrical warfare) is the weapon of the disempowered against the powerful. As long as literally billions of people on the planet don't have clean drinking water, let alone access to education and so on, then there will be an endless supply of rage to feed the other end of the process."

I regret that I have no mod points to spend on this -- I think it's the most succinct statement of the problem with the War on Terror I've ever heard. Nicely put.

Re:This is starting to get out of hand...

[Malcontent]

A good hurricane or an earthquake can easily cause 8 billion worth of damage. A draught or a flood can do the same thing. You don't see people calling for restricting freedoms whenever aan hurricane happens do you?

Support Networks

[N8F8]

Much of what has been done has been done to disrupt terrorist support networks. Money, training and housing. Without these the terrorists will have a much harder time. If you read detailed accounts of what terrorists went through on their way from teenager to terrorist it becomes evident that support networks were in place across the world for at least a decade.

Free World (tm)

[Otis_INF]

Reading this and putting the 'vision' (if you can call it that) of the USA's government in perspective, you start to wonder why the USA still are calling themselves "Leader of the Free World". Must be a different definition of 'Free' than I have...

Re:Free World (tm)

[kadehje]

The USA focuses on freedom because it's how the government pushes its agenda on the masses. The USA, like every other nation, has never been a truly free country. Instead, the US picks an evil contrary to the government's desires and urges its citizens to attack it by saying that eliminating that evil will lead to a Free(tm)-er America.

In 1775, residents of the "13 colonies" began to take up arms against Great Britain. At the beginning of the war, the gripes against the British Crown were primarily commerical, such as being allowed to buy tea only from one Crown-backed company and having to pay what they felt were ridiculous taxes on this tea and many other goods traded throughout the colonies. In April 1775, things like freedom of speech weren't a very important issue; those in North America just wanted the Crown to get the fsck out of of affairs that were previously left to the colonies to deal with internally.

When it became clear that it would be useless to extract these commerce-based concessions from the Crown, by the middle of 1776, the colonists began to move towards secession from the British Empire. They knew that they would not be able to sucessfully fight the war by themselves, so they needed help somehow. They drafted the Declaration of Independence, which detailed a set of ideals that the newly created United States would aspire to. In addition to solidifying the patriots' side (many in the would-be U.S. were sympathetic to the Crown at the beginning of the war), they managed to gain support from British people and companies who felt that the Crown's hunger for power was once again out of control (Britain's "Glorious Revolution" against royal tyranny had taken place 90 years previously). Ultimately, these ideals, along with existing distate for Britain, encouraged France to enter the war on the side of the colonists. So, it can be argued that the Declaration of Independence was as pragmatic a device as it was idealistic.

Did the newly created United States become a free nation? Largely so, provided you were a wealthy white male. Women and the poor were judged to be unqualified to handle the responsibilities of democracy; and blacks, almost all of whom were slaves at that time, were judged to be so lowly ranked in the animal kingdom that in addition to not being worthy of participating in the "democratic" government, counted as only 3/5 of an oppressed white person in the decennial census.

Fast forward 75 years to the Civil War. This time around, even wealthy white males weren't spared the shaft of tyranny. You may recall that self-determination was one of the major rallying cries in the Revolutionary War. So South Carolina, along with about a dozen other states, determines that its time to secede from the Northern states, just as the United States seceded from Britain. Well, we all know about how the folks in Washington D.C. felt about that decision. Especially the Maryland legislature, who were ordered to be arrested by President Lincoln without being accused of a criminal act (blatantly violating the "habeus corpus" provision of the Constitution) before they could convene and vote to secede from the Union. That's Freedom(tm) at work.

Northern opposition to slavery was again a largely pragmatic belief; the climate of the northern states wasn't very conducive to the slave-intensive agriculture found in the South and the new industries in the North required educated labor that would not tolerate the idea that they would be bound to the whims of a single master for their entire lives. So, Northern factory owners were forced to give a few crumbs and a few liberties to their employees; these factory owners were upset that they could not keep 100% of their factories' profits as plantation owners did. So, they led the crusade to "free" the slaves on these plantations in order for Northern and Southern businesses to run in the same set of economic rules. As in the Revolutionary War, the peddling of these ideas was also important to ensuring a favorable external political situation. In the early part of the Civil War, Great Britain seriously considered coming to the aid of the Confederacy. But then, the U.S. government managed to convince London that this war was not about economics; it was about bringing Freedom to oppressed slaves on plantations. Britain stayed out, allowing the North to take two years to get its military together (the South had nearly won the war by 1863) and rout the Confederacy.

As you all know, the years since 1865 have also been a sham in terms of giving true freedom to Americans. I just wanted to point out that the United States has always, from the time of its founding, been hypocrital regarding freedom. The hypocrisy predates the Red Scare, McCarthyism, Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No!" campaign, and it certainly predates September 11, 2001.

Hopefully these examples illustrate the true meaning of the concept of Freedom(tm) and how it differs from true freedom.

Re:Free World (tm)

[FattMattP]

Maybe they mean free as in free beer not as in free speech.

Re:Free World (tm)

[Luyseyal]

hrm, so what would "true freedom" be, exactly? Freedom from Freedom[tm]'s hypocrisy? is it that the Bill of Rights doesn't have enough rights listed in it or that they aren't consistently enforced/supported?

-l

Re:Is this really news?

[Anonymous Coward]

Making life hard for everyone and adding new regulation does not stimulate the economy by anyone's imagination.

The economy is stimulated by people doing productive work. Guys writing software that does nothing other than snoop on us isn't a net increase in wealth. And in the absence of this requirement, these guys could be writing code people would actually want.

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
• http://www.infoplease.com/ipd/A0431503.html
• http://www.loc.gov/law/guide/usexec.html
• http://www.sonic.net/sentinel/gvcon5.html - for a view opposing the executive order power

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

Be a PATRIOT

[WCMI92]

The government is good, it is god

Report your family's crimes.

The State is all powerful

Report your friend's crimes.

Resistance is Futile

Report your neighbor's crimes.

Privacy is UNAMERICAN

Pay no attention to the face scanning spy cameras in your neighborhood.

Open source is TERRORISM

Your crimes won't need to be reported. The SWAT team is already on the way.

How necessary is all this?

[be-fan]

Methinks its all just overkill, given that 9/11 seems to have been caused by some very basic oversights* rather than high-level terrorist subtlety.

* BTW, I doubt any amount of reshuffling is going to fix this. Methinks the FBI and CIA should be run more like the millitary. Leaders need to be held accountable. If anything bad happens on their watch, or if any over their subordinates screw up, they should be punished.

Re:How necessary is all this?

[alienmole]

Methinks its all just overkill, given that 9/11 seems to have been caused by some very basic oversights* rather than high-level terrorist subtlety.

You're absolutely correct. Unfortunately, at least two mutually reinforcing trends have resulted from 9/11: one is that the general public is spooked in various ways, and wants assurances of greater security; and the other is that those in power, who may have a better grasp of the real risks (which have not in fact changed significantly), see various benefits in offering answers to the public, whether or not those answers make sense.

Those answers are on the government's terms: a "war" which requires "sacrifices", which provides an enormous distraction from the nation's real business, making it difficult to judge the performance of the politicians on real issues; a wonderful excuse to push through laws addressing every inconvenience law enforcement and government has ever encountered; the list goes on.

I think the individuals involved have little in the way of ulterior motives beyond the gain they perceive for themselves and the groups to which they are loyal - groups including law enforcement, the wealthy, big business, and the the Christian right (who are every bit as scary as any Islamic extremist). But the net effect of all of this is likely to be a lot more scary, in the long run, than anything terrorists are able to do.

The problem is that it doesn't seem possible to teach historical subtleties to the society as a whole - we're going to have to relearn, through painful experience, a lesson that was last covered in the 1950s, during the McCarthy era.

Financial snooping may pay off.

[Animats]

Yesterday: "U.S. Customs agents have arrested a Jordanian-born man who was allegedly carrying $12 million in false cashier's checks, alarming counterterrorism officials who said the suspect may have been trained in al Qaeda terrorist camps in Afghanistan." This is significant. Apparently what's left of al Qaeda wanted $12 million in the US for something. It does indicate that attempts to cut off al Qaeda's money supply are working; these were false cashier's checks drawn on a non-existent branch bank, which is a desperation move.

So all this financial snooping actually does have some terrorism implications.

You forgot the 3 commandments

[xX_sticky_Xx]

War is Peace
Ignorance is Strength
Freedom is Slavery

What the USA Patriot Act does

[haaz]

I would not be surprised if most people do not know what the sardonically named USA Patriot Act does. Here's a brief rundown:

Permits the government to label groups as "terrorist" without proof or procedural safeguards.

Expands agents' authority to secretly enter homes and offices during criminal investigations and search, take photos, and download computer files.

Allows the FBI wide latitude to wiretap and spy on activists' phones, faxes, and e-mails.

Provides for indefinite detention of noncitizens.

It's bad. For the record, I agree with what's been said in the higher moderated comments about the U.S. becoming a police state. It is.

And we are not at war.

Except for the war on the Constitution. That's more real than their war on drugs, or terrorism.

anyway... A few cities, Portland, Oregon, Denver, and Ann Arbor, Michigan, are opposing the PATRIOT Act. Others haven't officially done so but are refusing to participate in the screenings their police departments have been asked to do. People are standing up to this and seeing it for the unconstitutional nightmare that it is.

"The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our number one priority and we will not rest until we find him!"
- George W. Bush, September 13, 2001

(how'd he know who was responsible so soon, hmm? hmm....)

"I don't know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and I really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority."
- George W. Bush, March 13, 2002

Re:The PRAT act?

[Tablizer]

(* To americans: Regardless of what you read, there aren't thousands of terrorist plots against you... The government are leading you on, so you'll take whatever they want to give you next *)

Well, there probably *are* lots of terrorist plots. The US makes a great scapegoat for the disaffected. The issue is whether such legislation will make any difference.

Plus, terrorists may use the very technology against us. I have seen nothing which prevents hackers nor terrorists from using the same minitoring tools for their own benefit and destruction purposes. Can the FBI guarentee that ONLY the FBI can use such monitoring devices?

Re:WWJD?

[_Sprocket_]

Personally I think that some of Christianities beliefs are quite unstable, especially when it comes to trying to match the end of times with current political and world events. (I am actually worried that some people are trying to force a match)

Hummanity is unstable - its not just the Christian religion. Religions tend to have mechanisms in place that lend themselves to becoming, ultimately, destructive tools. Since its kind of on-topic... look no further than the various Islamic faiths for another example.

Re:Open Source could be next

[rodgerd]

How could Open Source help? Well, it may be that over there you're required to hand over this information to your spooks courtesy of the Police State Act. However, I'd like to make sure that products I'm using for non-US clients aren't busy (possibly illegally) disclosing information to the FBI.

Re:WWJD?

[_Sprocket_]

Is it that ignorant people allow their religions to be hijacked for dubious goals? Or am I ignorant to believe that Islamic faith is just as susceptible as Christianity?

Re:Bush did it

[Malcontent]

Let's not forget an attack on iraq conveniently executed just in time for the next election.

Re:WWJD?

[_Sprocket_]

It's not as if people are in control of how other people use their religion to manipulate people.

Certainly. But the followers of any religion DO have the ability to decide whether they will follow their religious leaders. Too many ignorant followers of ALL religions allow themselves to be lead down dark paths - even those contrary to their own supposed beliefs.

Less you get the wrong idea, I'm not questioning the validity of Islam. I mention it because, like Christianity, it is one of the the world's most pervasive religions. I also include it because Islam is indirectly responsible for the PATRIOT act (this isn't a reaction to the actions of militant Wiccans).

Allow me to restate my point - all religions have aspects of instability. It is a condition of humanity. After all, religion is a device of our own creation. Even if the basis of those religions came from divine intervention / inspiration, it is still recorded by the hand of man.

Re:isql

[dvk]

Well, one feature that would actually make isql useable would be "command line" history (and yes, I know about Sqsh :)

BTW, I was right - my comment got modded down as Troll. Three cheers for /. moderators, valuing 1984-like political uniformity over level-headed analysis by someone who happened to deal with real issues and comment from real world point of view!
Maaan i'd be afraid to live in a world ruled by average /.-ters...

-DVK