Foreign government-controlled investors have been busy with brand-name investments in recent weeks: Borse Dubai, controlled by the Dubai government, and Qatar Investment Authority, another government-controlled entity, acquired nearly 50% of the London Stock Exchange, the same exchange that spurned an acquisition by Nasdaq at a lower price last year. Also, the Abu Dhabi government acquired 7.5% of the Carlyle Group.

The acquisition garnering the most attention, though, was Borse Dubai’s recent purchase of nearly 20% of Nasdaq. President Bush and several members of Congress, including senators Schumer, Dodd, and Menendez, have publicly called for governmental review.

If the 20% stake in Nasdaq had been bought by an American company — although the national identity of any corporation is increasingly obscure — the acquisition would be reviewed by the Securities and Exchange Commission and have to be passed on to the two federal antitrust agencies.

Mr. Bush and Congress have a different form of review in mind, one based on the national identity of the acquiring company. Reviews of such foreign investments will keep Washington busy over the next several months and, indeed, over the next year, for several reasons.

Most obviously, the dollar is weakening against other major currencies. That makes investments in America all the more attractive to foreign interests with appreciating currencies, and less attractive to dollar-based investors. This is especially true for oil-rich governments that use petroleum as an implicit currency. In the past two years, oil has approximately doubled in value, giving oil-rich governments substantial resources and dollars to invest in America.

Also, America remains a hospitable location for investment — an oasis of stability in a troubled world. Having predictable laws has encouraged foreign investment in America since its inception: In the 19th century, it was British companies that invested heavily in America, and in the 1980s it was the Japanese; more recently, a wide range of foreign investors, such as Russians and the Irish, have been investing here. The Bureau of Economic Analysis estimates that the total value of foreign investment in America exceeded the value of American investment abroad by more than $2.5 trillion at the end of 2006; that figure is certainly much higher today.

The current credit crunch is sending many potential American investors to the sidelines. With many of them unable to assemble competitive bids, sellers will increasingly look to foreign buyers. Some of those buyers, as we have seen in the past few weeks, are government-controlled. Those transactions, such as the Borse Dubai investment in Nasdaq, present ticklish issues for our federal government.

Six months ago, the federal review process would have clearly been under the Committee on Foreign Investment in America. CFIUS is an interagency working group whose chairman comes from the Department of Treasury. It operates in a closed government environment of careful deliberation. It has reviewed dozens of foreign investments in America for more than 20 years, but it has directly blocked very few.

Many foreign investments in America have faltered in recent years — but not because of CFIUS. Efforts by the government of China to acquire Global Crossing and Unocal, for example, failed in competition with higher bids from other investors. An effort by a different Dubai government-controlled entity, Dubai Ports, to acquire P&O’s American port operations ended because of public outcry.

CFIUS has been slow and opaque, but for all of its potential failings it can hardly be vilified as having allowed too many harmful foreign investments. Yet CFIUS is soon to be superseded by the Foreign Investment and National Security Act of 2007, which establishes a more open and all-too-visible review of foreign investments.

Usually, more public visibility is useful in government, but public review of specific transactions may frighten away many potential investors. Congress appropriately writes laws and sets policies, but the detailed review of transactions is properly left to those agencies with appropriate jurisdiction and judgment and with the means to handle businesses’ confidential information.

There is much worthy of federal review related to the Borse Dubai investment in Nasdaq. Our government must strike a delicate balance, preserving America as the most hospitable of countries for foreign investment while protecting our national security. That balance can best be reached outside the glare of television cameras. Under FINSA, the balance may not be reached. The eagerness of Congress directly to review foreign transactions, of which there will likely be many more in the coming months, is not encouraging.

A former FCC commissioner, Mr. Furchtgott-Roth is president of Furchtgott-Roth Economic Enterprises. He is organizing a seminar series at the Hudson Institute. He can be reached at hfr@furchtgott-roth.com.