US Fears Loss of ICQ Honeypot

AHuxley writes "US law enforcement bodies view the sale of instant messaging service ICQ to a Russian company as a threat to homeland security. In spring 2010, Russia's largest Internet investment company, Digital Sky Technologies, agreed to purchase the service for $187 million from AOL. The US is sure that most criminals use ICQ and, therefore, constant access to the ICQ servers is needed to track them down. As the system is based in Israel, American security service have had access. The article concludes, 'Lawyers [of unspecified nationality] say that to block the deal the US Committee on Foreign Investment needed to cancel it no later than within 30 days after the deal has been announced — so unless the rules are broken, nothing can be changed.'"

Comments

Wow...

[Heratiki]

Holy shit people still use ICQ??? I thought it fell off the face of the map... I mean who says "Hey what's your ICQ" or "Are you on ICQ?"... It's been forever since ICQ was anything but a novel messenger service... I mean really???

Re:hmmm

[PietjeJantje]

What doesn't shock me is to learn that Americans still are ignorant of the bigger world around them, and still, for some reason, smugly arrogant about it, like it is an accomplishment. You're just looking ignorant however. Next, you are gonna be shocked to learn that Yahoo is king in Japan, Google is marginal in China, and Denmark is not the capital of Amsterdam, and then tell us about it like you have insight on their sanity.

Re:National Security Act

[dryeo]

Seizing private property for public use is probably unavoidable sometimes, but generally allowing it on a day-to-day basis is equal to real, old-school, hard-core Communism or Fascism.

And no, that's no slippery slope argument: The State removing private property from its rightful owner to give it to The People is what Communism is all about.

And Capitalism is all about removing the People's property to give it to private interests, often killing millions to do it. (The USA as an example had a national policy of genocide for a long time and may have killed more people then Stalin)