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You wrote, "I am still wondering how Foley's IM's were collected..."

Any number of ways, but I gather you're wondering how the press broke the story since Foley, although a creepy, evil, perverted piece of human garbage, would probably have a highly secured IM conduit. I just found out about this miserable business today, so it's just a guess, but I would imagine it was the plain old human factor: one of the boys he targeted showed one of Foley's messages to a friend or group of friends, or a parent discovered it, and word got out. One thing leads to another, and the press followed the trail. Those IMs weren't just Foley's messages, after all. Messages require two parties. They were sent to someone--from what I can glean from the news, several someones. Pedophiles are usually fairly canny when it comes to covering their tracks in this regard, but I think Foley believed his position would offer him protection and camouflage.

Besides, IM messages are data. Data doesn't disappear into the ether. Any system administrator worth his pay and with the proper server permissions can access IM logs. Democrat or Republican, if a techie found a pedophile, no matter how highly placed or powerful, he or she would probably want to expose the pedophile without risking repercussions, so a leak to the press would do the job. A US congressman is no one to mess with lightly.

You should get the idea. Information like this wants to be free, and can't remain hidden indefinitely.