To prevent this sort of thing happening in future why doesn't theymos cede control of the forum to someone he trusts who lives in Russia or Belize or wherever, and who is willing to ignore such subpoenas?
Why? It's not the responsibility of theymos to make sure the users of this forum are decent honest people. It's also not his responsibility to protect forum users from the law. He's a forum administrator not a mommy or a nanny. He only has one job duty on this forum and only owes one thing to its membership - keep the forum running. There are a bunch of little jobs inside that one duty like keep the spam down, ban the disruptive people, pay for the hosting, update the software, bla bla. Nowhere in that duty list does it say, keep members from being ripped off and hide them from the law.
It does however "say": provide information to people who request it formally and with good reason... If Theymos had seen this as 'no good reason' (which in part he did) he's free to protest (which he did succesfully)...
He didn't have to protest, he did that because he's a bleeding heart liberal. If I was running this forum and received a subpoena I'd roll you over in the clover every single time. Mainly because I don't have a reason to make your criminal behavior become my legal battle.
I'm "a bleeding heart liberal" too, but basically we seem to agree...
