Also anyone that thinks btc is below the radar is wrong.
Care to elaborate?
Sure. I can't prove that it's being actively watched etc but if you just glance at some of the things being talked about on here it's pretty obvious that it's going to draw some attention. With the amount of posts that are full of anti government anti US statements plus hacking potential illegal uses of btc and everything else that gets talked about on these boards and associated with btc there's no way it doesn't generate some heat. Look at the amount of people that have been arrested over a joking facebook post that someone thought was dangerous then multiply that by who knows how many that were investigated but they didn't take any action. There is a significant amount of people talking about things that the government (some rightfully) would be concerned with. I'd bet everything I've got they're well aware of btc and keeping tabs. I don't see how any system that automatically parsed keywords wouldn't flag these boards in a heartbeat and it's publicly known that they're more than capable of that.
Please excuse my colloquialism... By 'under the radar' I don't mean secret... That would be 'off the map', or underground, which Bitcoin definitely is not. Sure, there may be interest from spook types, but when it comes to the current size of the BTC economy... Seriously, they have better fish to fry.
Remember the encryption wars of the 1990's? They were threatening to slammer anyone who 'exported' strong encryption tools for arms trafficking... Yeah, it was like that. But thankfully, due to the efforts of the EFF and others, with victories like the Bernstein case, we can all freely use those tools to mutual benefit, relatively free from fear of legal molestation. Even so, by then it was really too late to stop. The Bitcoin idea is really too late to stop at this point as well, but that does not mean that it is immune to interference. In that light I would personally prefer that the established Bitcoin systems become a bit more robust before having to take on serious attacks from various fronts.
By not under the radar I mean "they" are well aware of what's going on. If Bitcoin is "too late to stop" as you said and the goal is to provide competition to the USD and be able to secretly instantly send money then "they" should be concerned because this is a huge problem for "them". In this case you can substitute whatever you want for "they" be it bankers, politicians or whoever. The government would lose in a lot of regards if Bitcoin were bigger. I see Bitcoin benefiting a lot of people but the few elite that have 100000x the influence of an average person not benefiting and being against it.
