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Comment by higherpurpose | Hacker News Reader

If this happens, I hope more US companies or start-ups move their headquarters/servers abroad. Maybe then Congress will do something serious about it. This, perhaps more than anything revealed so far, would make me switch to a non-US based service as soon as possible.

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The NSA can just crack into your servers abroad, if they want to; no warrants required. Admittedly they'd have to work a bit harder if it's not in a jurisdiction friendly to them, but breaking into foreign servers is basically their job.

If people running the company in question still hold US citizenship or keep money in the US, the US legal system can still reach them unless they never want to go home.

and its not exactly trivial to renounce US citizenship either. They'll still come after you if they believe you're just tax dodging.

Yes if companies move off shore then the NSA doesn't even have to give a second thought to the legality of their actions(not that they're giving it much thought now). But if enough big US businesses move elsewhere and take their jobs and tax revenue with them, that will probably serve as a strong motivator for Congress critters.

I wish!

Reality is far from that I am afraid.

Maybe google is planning this with their secret barge buildings? Float them offshore and become sovereign on their own? This way they wouldn't have to comply with government requests to turn over data and use the possibility to evade taxes as well?

Seems a little far fetched but you never know.

It was incredibly far-fetched until you mentioned dodging taxes... That is apparently the only government action that will stir these tech behemoths to action.

I agree, evade taxes and maybe user data not getting into the hands of NSA/US Gov't via court request would be a byproduct. Obviously the NSA would just try exploiting their floating data centers.

That wouldn't be enough, they would also have to stop all their economic activity within the US for Congress to notice or care.

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