If you're not a millennial or thereabouts, then, as I already stated, you must not be paying attention, at all. Get your head out of the sand, son, and take a good long critical look at the world around you, read the news (NOT just from U.S. sources, either, from the BBC, Al Jazeera, and other foreign sources) and see the evidence for yourself: You're being watched, monitored, and profiled by your own government, and by corporations, and so far it's not getting any better, it's getting worse, and the current generation of young people, having been born into this surveillance culture we're rapidly becoming, don't know the difference. And by the way I'm almost 50 years old, and I, for one, have not had my head in the sand the entire time, and I remember what it was like to have some modicum of privacy in my day-to-day life, pre-Internet, and what it was like to live in a world where it was unthinkable to have CCTV cameras everywhere, and where it was looked down upon to pry into other people's lives. But please, go right ahead and continue to live in denial if that's what makes you happy, so far as the government is concerned, that just makes you a 'patriot' and a 'good citizen' anymore (as they pat you on the head like a well-behaved pet).

Yeah, it's true. I used to believe that I grew up in the 'Land of the free, home of the brave' that we were taught we were living in. Then I discovered that the U.S. wasn't so much the 'good guys' that I thought we were (although we have our moments) and that there are people like the entire Bush family of traitors (as in George and G.W., going back for generations) that have been actively working to *undermine* the U.S. Constitution for their own ends since shortly after the U.S. was even formed into it's own independent nation.

At this stage of the game, the best bet for anyone wishing to be left the hell alone is the 'hide in plain sight' tactic: Leave enough of a digital footprint and paper-trail to appear ordinary, and this be left alone. At least for now, that'll work and will keep you safe, because they (governments, corporations) still don't have the processing capacity to bring the signal-to-noise ratio up to the point where they'd even see the patterns in that well enough to realize you are using surveillance countermeasures like that, and focus on you specifically. I still hold out the hope that this situation can be turned around before it reaches the point that everyone is always under the high-resolution microscope like that though.

I think I like this John McAfee person.

You must be young.
You sound like someone who was raised in this surveillance culture we're now living in, and as such have been so thoroughly indoctrinated by the societal, corporate, and government propaganda and conditioning, that you actually believe that 'privacy' is something only sought after by criminals and the mentally ill. Either that or you just don't understand that we're being surveilled constantly, with plans to surveil us even more than we already are.

I'm not at all surprised. That's about how people act when they're living in oppressive conditions, knowing that it's not a matter of 'if', but of 'when' they slip up, say or do something the government considers 'undesirable', and they're scooped up and hauled away to some form of incarceration or other, their lives (and maybe their families' lives, too?) ruined. As I said in my own comment: You can't legislate and mandate morality.

If your every move is being watched by a government that can and will scoop you up and destroy your life for so much as saying something they don't like ('undesirable content' indeed!) then it's completely and totally moot whether or not people 'behave', because you're inhibiting their true nature via threats to their existence. At best you're driving criminal elements of all different stripes deeper underground, not stamping them out. Something as trivial and relatively innocuous as filesharing, or actually speaking your mind (when it's not a 'popular', or perhaps in this context, a 'state approve' viewpoint)? They just learn to hide better. In my opinion, it's about as valid as Victorian morals or the Puritans, who also were just better at hiding their dirty laundry and base desires for sake of appearances. You can't legislate and mandate morality.

I care about all the above, actually.

Time to dig those PS/2 keyboards and mice out of the back of the closet, I guess..

Subway cars and trains run on tracks, they can't be sent off in arbitrary directions. Other than that I'm sure there are manual overrides to activate mechanical brakes. Not even a valid comparison so far as I'm concerned.

Someone else mentioned planes. I rarely fly anywhere nor do I anticipate much of a need to do so anytime in the near future. I'm talking about automobiles here.

Does my Toyota Tacoma have a potentiometer connected to the throttle pedal? Yes. Do I not have control of the vehicle? Sure I do, complete control, because there is mechanical linkage between the steering wheel and the front wheels, and between the brake pedal and the master cylinder, and there's always the parking brake as well which is 100% mechanical, and it's a 5-speed stick, so I can always put it in neutral. I don't even want to own an automatic transmission vehicle anymore. I don't even drive the pickup that often, most of the time I'm on a motorcycle. Try making THAT driverless! Also, as I said before: You'll have to pry my motorcycle(s) from my cold, dead hands.

I, for one, will NEVER ride in or own a vehicle that does not have a steering wheel, foot-actuated throttle pedal, foot-actuated brake pedal, foot-actuated clutch pedal (where applicable), gear selector lever, etc. and I know I'm not alone in this. I don't care HOW foolproof they make them. I will NEVER put my life in the hands of some programmer or team of programmers, not even if they're riding in the car with me. I'd sooner go back to riding a motorcycle 100% of the time, all year 'round, and by the way the only way you're getting my motorcycles away from me is when you pry them from my cold, dead hands.

Some of you talk like this is some new form of freedom you're going to live to see, but I and many like me see it as the complete opposite: It's a freedom being taken AWAY from us, and none of you, in your mad rush towards your alleged vehicular utopia, ever talk about the new problems this is going to create: at the top of my list are hackers, and police. What's going to stop someone from hacking your driverless, manual control-less car while you're in it, and sending it to who-knows-where, maybe into a concrete abutment at high speed, overriding all the so-called 'safeties' built into it? Or just highjacking it to an undisclosed location, essentially kidnapping you, or greeted by someone with a gun, who shoots you, and takes the car? What about police abuse of what will most certainly be a built-in 'safety override' they can enable at will, causing your car to pull over immediately, regardless of the reason why? Or something too many of you don't seem to care about: having your every move tracked, which will just be that much easier for corporations and governments to do when the car is completely automated? Nope, no thank you, I've said it before, I'll keep saying it, you can keep your autonomous/driverless/control-less cars, thank you very much. And by the way I work in a high-tech industry, have my entire adult life, and I do not shun technology or even change, just things that I view a stupid and reckless, and things that ultimately will infringe upon my personal freedom. Anyone who doesn't like my opinion can save their breath, I'm not hearing your arguments, complaints, or insults.

Fuck off, OK? Apparently this is 'No Sense of Humor Friday' and nobody told me.

When I can still say things like "HEY NSA, YOU SUCK ASS AND NEED TO BE SHUT DOWN, YOU'RE UN-AMERICAN!" and not get arrested in the middle of the night? Then it's still 'foreshadowing'.

Oh hi there, I'm in my late 40's, but since I actually go to great pains to take care of myself, I'm not obese, weak, slow, and sickly like the average person is.. so I'm in that 'pool' you speak of, the one that 'gets' to pay for everyone else, who fucked themselves up eating crap and never moving off the goddamn couch, except to go to the refrigerator. Know what your oh-so-wonderful ACA is going to eventually do to my life? Ensure that I can't AFFORD to keep doing the things that are KEEPING ME HEALTHY, that's what. Then I'll end up fat, weak, slow, sickly, and miserable. Ain't that a hoot? I resent having to pay for healthcare for people who wouldn't NEED it if they could be bothered to take care of themselves properly.

Am I the only one who sees this as foreshadowing of the possible future for the U.S., assuming the NSA isn't reined in starting now?

Yeah sure whatever you say, pal. All I want is the Internet to not be de-facto owned by Comcast, or AT&T, or Verizon, or whichever asshole corporation you care to name, because they will ruin it too, but in even worse ways, and they'll charge everyone up the ass for it while giving less and less value in return. This shit keeps up and I'll just skip the goddamn Internet completely and go back to reading more books instead.