Fear mongering in an election year isn't abnormal, and so the rash of concern over cross border deals shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. First there was the DP World port issue, then the refusal to approve the sale of U.S.-based Sourcefire Inc. to Israel's Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. and now the Lucent Technologies Inc./Alcatel deal may get a look.

However, according to InformationWeek, the U.S. needs to accept that globalization has already occurred in the IT sector and stop mucking around with deals. Once upon a time the U.S. did care about certain strategic technology assets not being produced in the U.S., witness the creation of Sematech in the 80s to bolster the United States' semiconductor manufacturing industry against competition from Japan, but the U.S. doesn't have the money or inclination to create those kinds of programs now. So unless the government puts money behind its demands to stay on top technically, it needs to step out of the way when it comes to regulating who can merge with whom based on perceived security threats. — Stacey Higginbotham

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