Now that you mention it, they should probably GTFO from the US ... and incorporate somewhere else. Like Switzerland.
Some of us have family and kids keeping us here.
The company could be incorporated in Switzerland even if you live in the US .. but these days I do think being an American and/or living in US soil is a big liability on many fronts. In light of recent events it should not be necessary to elaborate.
But yeah, I worry about Cryptonomex being a US company. Among other things, the government there can force you guys not to disclose to us any backdoors they decide to implement, they can lock you all in jail under any pretext, seize laptops and servers on US soil, freely intercept your non-encrypted communications.. plant bugs with near impunity, etc.
BitShares, especially in the 2.0 incarnation (once again, well done.. if the code matches the announcements, it'll be BIG!), is going to majorly piss some old, fat sharks.. sharks with millions of dollars and plenty of friends high up.
Being incorporated in a jurisdiction where frivolous litigation is the rule, a tendency for too much regulation, a clearly established oligarchic system, and to top it off an increasingly totalitarian government with an unhealthy appetite for tax dollars and curbing personal freedom (of which BTS 2.0 with privacy will bring plenty).. you get the picture.
They've already started...
https://twitter.com/robrig0/status/606674745241837568I agree that living in the United States seems risky, why else would I be paranoid (I've never been a "worry wort") just from my participation in cryptocurrency projects and statements of belief? As you mentioned, the proof of plans to invade privacy in the spirit of control are laid bare with all of the information whistle-blowers have released.
Luckily, others will always be able to read the open source code on github, to hopefully ensure any potential future back-doors would be blatant and noticed.
It's hard to stand by and watch a large number of people succumb to the delusion that we have choice. Systemic discrimination is all a part of the plan to create "rules" that perpetuates suffering, neglects the common good, and divides and conquers diverse peoples. Hopefully none of us become the next JFK, MLK, or Fred Hampton.
A measure we can take is toward adopting a privacy focused set of end to end encryption and distributed communications tools. Peer-to-peer forums (
RetroShare,
Aether) end to end encrypted chats (
Tox,
OpenWhisperSystems,
CryptoCat) and peer-to-peer collaboration tools such as
Friends (Slack imitator) is a step in the right direction.