I am not sure how you arrived at the "System" is correcting itself from the abuses of the Bush Administration. In case you haven't been following the news lately the current administration is stepping up law enforcement at every level and in May of this year Obama not only renewed the Patriot-Act, but his DOJ has issued a number of rulings and guidance that have taken the Patriot Act even further than the Bush administration did in violating our civil rights. For example did you know that the Obama administration claims the Patriot Act renders the U.S. immune from suit under other surveillance laws. This means that the government cannot be held accountable for illegal surveillance under any federal statutes. So in many of the above example even if you are harmed and the court rules in your favor, once the cat is our of the bag you have no recourse against the government?
These types of agreements are very common within the public account realm. Every engagement letter I have signed with a CPA firms states you cannot hire their employees for a period of X years after work in completed. These are legal as the issue isn't between the employee and either company, but between the companies. So if Apple and Palm signed an agreement ( let's assume it wast was a valid contract and they had a valid reason to do for the moment) the employees would be able to leave Apple to go to Palm, but Apple would have legal recourse against Palm for damages etc. No in the accounting world these agreements are not typically enforced unless you fire you CPA firms since they really don't want to lose a client, but they do need to protect their talent. These agreement have also been part of every IT implementation contract I have signed and again they are rarely enforced by the software company, but I have put them in place the other direction to prevent the software company from poaching my business process experts etc.
No if they made such an agreement without a valid contract and without a valid business relationship, they it very well might be illegal IMHO.
Slashdot Mirror
I am not sure how you arrived at the "System" is correcting itself from the abuses of the Bush Administration. In case you haven't been following the news lately the current administration is stepping up law enforcement at every level and in May of this year Obama not only renewed the Patriot-Act, but his DOJ has issued a number of rulings and guidance that have taken the Patriot Act even further than the Bush administration did in violating our civil rights. For example did you know that the Obama administration claims the Patriot Act renders the U.S. immune from suit under other surveillance laws. This means that the government cannot be held accountable for illegal surveillance under any federal statutes. So in many of the above example even if you are harmed and the court rules in your favor, once the cat is our of the bag you have no recourse against the government?
These types of agreements are very common within the public account realm. Every engagement letter I have signed with a CPA firms states you cannot hire their employees for a period of X years after work in completed. These are legal as the issue isn't between the employee and either company, but between the companies. So if Apple and Palm signed an agreement ( let's assume it wast was a valid contract and they had a valid reason to do for the moment) the employees would be able to leave Apple to go to Palm, but Apple would have legal recourse against Palm for damages etc. No in the accounting world these agreements are not typically enforced unless you fire you CPA firms since they really don't want to lose a client, but they do need to protect their talent. These agreement have also been part of every IT implementation contract I have signed and again they are rarely enforced by the software company, but I have put them in place the other direction to prevent the software company from poaching my business process experts etc. No if they made such an agreement without a valid contract and without a valid business relationship, they it very well might be illegal IMHO.