Google, Microsoft, and Facebook basically have had billions of dollars shaved off of their future market capitalization -- though I have not seen anyone say this yet.

For everyone abroad who is technically adept and talented, the vaults of wealth have been unlocked for you; just copy the successful offerings of American companies. Don't worry about software patents or trademarks unless your country is complicit, you'll have the autonomy of a oligarch (said with some sarcasm.)

There is one solution here: open source, distributed software. If you want to build a company to promote real security this is your only option.

If you are non-US citizen and your customers request a product similar to US product please do exactly as AJ007 says. It will help you, the world, and the US long term. I say this as US citizen and SW dev. Please take our jobs and customers! We don't deserve those customers if we can't protect them and their data.

However, you should only build it if customers are requesting SAAS (or other offerings). Be very careful about blindly copying US business b/c many are successful simply b/c they are almost "Apparatchik" entities, supplying and protected by the US Gov. For example, if you copy Palantir or even Google/Facebook you may not succeed b/c you won't have customers in the same way the US does. But overall, this is a great opportunity for devs from Switzerland (and the like) to get some new customers.

Likewise, this is also very bad news if you are a Chinese or Russian internet company and expect to become a dominant player in the US consumer web/digital/mobile market place.

What are you doing on your own checklist? Those are some pretty extremist notions.

If part of your hiring criteria was to exclude anyone who had worked for a contractor or directly for a government organization, I doubt many people would want to work for you. Not because they had violated your criteria, either.

I'm referring to a very small percentage of the government and contract workers who are involved in security and surveillance. I'm not talking about VA or even the regular marines/navy/police.

I won't be doing this explicitly.

Whether people would want to to work in a place that explicitly will not work with former NSA contractors depends on the area. In SF, Boston, NYC, Portland, maybe LA it would probably help you hire good workers. Obviously, in DC or Houston it would be more controversial and hurt the company. Remember these organizations/contractors are destroying our jobs, especially in silicon valley.

Not to mention, most countries will pretty much cooperate with the US when it comes to intelligence. The only ones that might not are countries like Russia or China that have their own military-industrial complexes, which are just as eager to get at your data and a lot less scrupulous about using it.