We, the bitcoin users, don't need the bitcoin foundation to represent us. We have no faces. If any user, US government included, has any problem using Bitcoin, we can help him in the bitcointalk forum. But nearly all the questions a government could have about Bitcoin are very well explained in satoshi's paper and the source code. The only words the foundation had to say in that meeting: read the paper and the code as all of we did, it's all explained there.
Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska described the internet as "a series of tubes"... in 2006! What makes you think any government is going to read source code to understand a technology?
It's time to pull our collective heads out of the ground and recognize that
doing nothing is the worst possible approach. If we (as a community) don't communicate with US government officials, Bitcoin will remain over-regulated, preventing legitimate businesses from springing up.
You can want "no regulation" as much as you want, but it's not going to happen with Bitcoin any time soon. Accept it.
The US is a warrior state. It leads by force and is willing to take extreme measures to win. Ask anyone living in Hiroshima or Nagasaki during WW2 about the willingness if US politicians to do anything to win. Regardless of what you would all like to think, Bitcoin is at war with the US and it only has one chance at survival. Politicians and regulators only think what their constituents tell them to think. Their first instinct is survival and they will lie, cheat and steal to survive (very few will do all three at once like Richard Nixon - but it does happen). Change the opinion of the public and make the public want it and the governments survival will depend on favorable regulations. The giant warrior drew first blood. If these Bitcoin businesses want to sit across a table and negotiate a peace treaty that's fine but always remember you are struggling for survival against a self serving beast that will do anything to survive.
Abraham Lincoln was the quintessential politician and reveals their nature the best: "