It is worth pointing out that the state can put out Cease And Desist orders, and warnings on its website with no: 1) Evidence of wrongdoing 2) Communication with the accused 3) Method of reconciliation

I have my own personal example:

I received a letter ordering us to cease and desist from doing online notarization through California notaries. We were not doing so, so in effect we sent back a letter stating: "We have not, and never have, conducted the activity you accuse us of." They basically responded saying "ok, we agree that you haven't done anything wrong but if you do anything we will prosecute you to the full extent of the law."

A few weeks later, they posted a "consumer warning" on their website saying that our company was in effect defrauding companies. Then, several other states copied that language without contact. I spoke with the government officials, I told them we were hurt by these baseless accusations, and they admitted that they really had no evidence of any wrongdoing. They basically said "we are too busy to update the website right now but we will do so shortly."

After months of effort, I was able to one by one get most of these ultimately removed or reworded to a reasonable position. California was the last holdout. I basically began the process of suing them for massive damages and that ultimately was the only thing that was able to get them to change the wording.

So overall, my learning is that it genuinely scares me what government agencies can do without any evidence or judicial process. I would guess that the Bitcoin Foundation can respond with "you are wrong, please provide evidence" and get away with it for now.

Man, how times have changed. I was born in the 70s and the US was the country you would run to to escape retribution for whistleblowing you did back home. (†)

For Snowden to be running to Russia to escape extradition from Hong Kong (!) is just fucking bizarro world for me. It is actually quite jarring. I don't trust Russia at all. But even thinking about it forces one to ask whether one trusts the USA. The answer to that is pretty jarring, too.

(†) I'm not making a right/wrong judgement about his actions. He blew a whistle, a whistle he thought needed to be blown. In my opinion that is a necessary check on state power and is a defence in and of itself.