the corpo-political matrix unravels

Isn't the internet amazing? Had it not been for the accessibility of this information to diligent bloggers, these facts would have never so quickly surfaced in the mainstream media. Indeed, they might not have surfaced, at all.

The [Israeli] company was told U.S. officials feared the [acquisition of its US rival] could endanger some of the government's most sensitive computer systems.

The objections by the FBI and Pentagon were partly over specialized intrusion detection software known as "Snort," which guards some classified U.S. military and intelligence computers.

Snort's author is a senior executive at Sourcefire Inc., which would be sold to publicly traded Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. in Ramat Gan, Israel.

The 45-day investigation into the Israeli deal still under way is only the 26th ever conducted in 1,600 business transactions reviewed by the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States.

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[A] former senior U.S. official who participated in reviews under President Clinton, said the Israeli sale involves more dire security issues than the administration's recent approval for a Dubai-owned company to take over significant operations at six major American ports.

"This raises a lot more important issues," said Reinsch, a former Commerce Department undersecretary. "The most important case is where we're making an irrevocable technology transfer to a foreign party. Port operations raise security issues, but the ports are still in the United States."

Check Point and Sourcefire declined to comment. Officials at the Defense Department, FBI and Justice Department also declined to comment.

Draw your own conclusions. Blessed is the internet that connects and informs us.