For you edification, the firearm he is describing appears to be a very high-end double rifle, in "12 bore" size (0.739"). That is a dangerous game rifle, and may well cost over $100,000.

Not at all. There are plenty of circumstances where a 4th Amendment challenge may exist in addition to other legal and factual defenses. For example, let's say you are driving a convertible and get pulled over by the police for no good reason, and they proceed to search your car without probable cause and find a baggie of drugs in the back seat. You have two 4th Amendment challenges here - both to the stop, and also to the search. You also have a defense that the baggie in the back seat of a convertible may not have been yours, since anyone could have dropped it in there. Challenging a search on constitutional grounds is not an admission of anything.

Yes, it is a substantial deterrent. The limitations are imposed in the lowest-level parts of the GPS receiver, the first stage of data processing at which it is technically feasible to infer speed and altitude. The hardware that runs this code is highly specialized - it's a mixed analog/digital RF ASIC that is designed in hardware to run that specific code, including the limitation. There is little distinction between hardware and firmware at that point, and it is likely that the code responsible for the limitation is not programmable/reprogrammable at all. The sophistication needed to build a rudimentary short-range guided missile is surprisingly basic, and many hobbyists (or terroristically-inclined groups) could do it without too much difficulty, on a five-figure or low-six-figure budget. The GPS limitation significantly hinders the on-target accuracy that could be achieved, since the high speed terminal phase of the flight is where excellent guidance in an absolute reference frame is most important. The sophistication needed to build or microscopically alter a GPS receiver without the limitation is significantly greater (and in an entirely different technical field) than what is needed to build a missile that would benefit from that GPS guidance.

The limitations at issue are not accuracy limits. Nowadays there are no real differences in accuracy between military and civilian GPS, since selective availability was turned off years ago. The problem is that civilian GPS firmware prohibits the device from giving a fix if it is above a certain altitude (around 60,000 feet) and moving faster that about mach 1. This makes it useless for midcourse guidance of a rocket, which is the point.

Apparently I already have a plasma rifle in my garage! It shoots plasma and cuts metal with it - and just like this laser rifle, it requires compressed air and a remote power supply connected by an umbilical. I also have a MOLTEN METAL WELDING RIFLE! Similarly, it requires a power supply and umbilical assembly. Strangely, none of my actual rifles need cables or power supplies attached to them in order to operate.

That is plainly incorrect. As a constitutional matter, truthful negative statements are protected speech in the United States. You have misinterpreted the precedent.

A search by a private individual at the behest of the government is the same as a search by the government. Anyone acting on behalf of the government (whether directly employed by them or not) is bound by the constitutional limitations on government action. Source: IIAL, and I don't have time to look up the cite.

A server is a server. You can run as many VM's as you want on a server, but every VM exists on a real, physical, rack-mounted, power-consuming server.

You never know what's in that baggage. Some of the most valuable cargo is transported as carry-on, personally supervised baggage. Some things are worth saving, either due to extreme economic value or personal or cultural significance.

A large portion of that list doesn't look anti-science. Business deregulation? Firing regulatory officials for "lack of leadership"? Discontinuing a mandatory census? Rolling back environmental regulations? Withdraw from Kyoto Accord? Changes to fisheries regulations? Procedural changes for public hearings on pipeline work? And so on... These are not "anti-science" changes. They are anti-liberal, anti-environmentalist, and pro-business political moves. Think there might be some political bias by the author of this list?

Back in the olden days, equipment like this had serial port configuration interfaces which were intended for use by nearby administrators, via terminals and small local networks with no connectivity beyond the local facility. If longer distance administration was required, it was over dedicated copper loops. The internet was simply not used for these kinds of systems, and the idea that those devices would ever end up on a globally-accessible network with millions of untrusted devices was incomprehensible. As technology developed and the internet took over as the primary means of long-distance networked communication, these legacy devices were incorporated into a network environment that their engineers had never even considered. It's just not what they were made for. The devices are not to blame. Engineers and administrators who put them on public networks certainly are.

Just delete this and start over. Really. How does this word-salad get approved for publication to millions of people?

You can. That's what "lists" are for. You add people to lists, and set default privacy settings for the lists.

If in the United States, the answer is universally "NO". Decryption cannot be mandated. There have been a couple close calls over the years under some unusual circumstances, but the general principle stands.

The only actual solution is to stream the video to off-site hosted storage, preferably in an inconvenient foreign jurisdiction. If it's stored on the device, it's subject to seizure - whether encrypted or not. Losing the video is often worse than having it viewed by someone against your will. And rest assured, if you record something really bad, there's a good chance someone will destroy the recording device (whether the perpetrator is government or non-government).