I think, if I were to start a website nowadays, I would register the domain outside the US. You can publish to and view it from anywhere, so there is no reason to give these thugs the ability to “disappear” you, unless you are hellbent on getting that .com at the end.
I don't think that it matters. It's my understanding that megaupload was entirely outside of the US. Their headquarters were in Hong Kong and the principal operators lived in New Zealand but the US still shut them down.