The reason I started this thread because I wanted to join a foreign exchange that would allow me to send USD to and obtain bitcoin to purchase bitcoin mining hardware. Since Mt. Gox had their account seized in the US I was concerned about sending money to them, so I went to BTC-e. They didn't have an easy way to send money other than international wire transfer which was going to cost a sh*t load of fees, so I looked around at some of the the other methods they offered and each one I went to said no new accounts from the US. I was taken back by this because even if the US requested a foreign company to comply with anything, it is optional for the foreign company to do so. Although I wasn't interested in money laundering or any other kind of illegal act such as buying controlled substances, but had a legitimate purpose, I didn't understand why they wouldn't want to do business with Americans. Certainly in Mt. Gox's case failure to comply was costly, and I'm sure once they cross their t's and dot their i's they will get their funds released. The government just wants to make sure they can catch the bad guys, and that's fine by me.