

Ask HN: Where to incorporate free of the US? - geuis

Its a hypothetical question, but answers could be helpful to others.<p>I&#x27;m a US citizen. Suppose that I wanted to form a company providing a service that the US government conceivably might want access to. What would be some advanced countries (internet access, stable government and society, free market) where I could form a company and be free of US government shennanigans?
======
dragonwriter
There aren't any. Your choices are: 1) Countries where if the US government
(particularly, the bits of it concerned with national security) wants access
to your system, they can hand you an order to give them access and you will
face criminal sanctions if you fail to comply (i.e., the US itself), or 2)
Countries where if the US government (particularly, the bits of it concerned
with national security) wants access to your system, then either you will be
the target of efforts to enlist your local government (if that government is
one the US government thinks it can influence on the issue) or you become the
target of the most powerful national security apparatus on the planet, without
even the theoretical restraints that apply to that apparatus when it is
operating domestically (i.e., everywhere that isn't the US.)

Neither of these can be reasonably described as "free of US government
shennanigans" in either the theoretical or the practical sense.

~~~
geuis
This is depressing. Welp, looks like space is the place to be.

~~~
krapp
If you're interested I know a guy who can get you some real estate on the
Moon, cheap.

------
BWStearns
You could build the system so that giving information would be useless. This
could be achieved (depending on the system) by having users host their data on
their own computers, or by using crypto that would render you unable to
provide the data (i.e. they have the private key and you cannot provide
anything but the ciphertext). That said it would only be as effective as your
implementation, so hire (or be) a good crypto guy!

------
ethanazir
For patent purposes: and perhaps English language I would look at New Zealand.
I don't know the NZ view on National Security though. Singapore is a tax haven
but looks real bad if your not very wealthy. Other options I ignored because
of language issues or other uncertainties associated with countries like
Venezuela.

