That's not mass surveillance, it only records the flight crew and it records on a loop so only the last 30 minutes or so are available at any given time. It also serves a very important purpose in case something happens to the plane.

"a dense husk of degenerate matter that was once a massive star long" - Lindsey Lohan?

So if I ever thought (or said) that I like you then I can't sue you (take legal action)? Tell that to anyone that's been divorced...

Your idea assumes that the price-per-kb is reasonable. If you look at what people are currently charged by AT&T for "overage", you get an idea of what they think they should charge. The only reason that your "package" price-per-kb is lower is because most people don't use it all. If you only actually paid for what you use, you'd be paying a *LOT* more for it (close the the "overage" rate I expect).

I think that's a catch 22. If you where the star of a show making $5000 per episode and found out that each episode was turning a profit of $3,000,000 then you'd probably want a higher salary since your effort is making someone else so much money. Just like with movie actor's salaries if an actor becomes more popular more people come to see their movies and the movies make progressively more money and of course the actor would want a higher salary.

As good as this seems on paper, along with the idea of being able to only subscribe to the channels you want I think the reality of it would suck. I believe that if the revenue model for television had always been a subscription per show or even channel basis then a lot of shows/channels would have never existed. If you look at what shows are popular now then I hope you LOVE reality TV and want to watch all 17 variations of Survivor and American Idol that would come to be. I hope you don't like sci-fi because there wouldn't be enough money in it to make any of those shows. The fact is I (and probably a lot of others) watch a LOT of TV we wouldn't pay specifically for.

Just an observation, in your post you mention "if the device is not subsidized by verizon, and is the user's personal property". Assuming that ownership of the device makes a difference, I think you could argue that he owns it either way. If I buy a phone that's worth $500 for $200 in exchange for a 2 year contract then there will be a penalty that will more than pay for the phone if I cancel. If that penalty is part of my agreement then I don't see how the phone wouldn't be considered "mine" since I've agreed to either honor my contract or reimburse them if I don't; assuming I do either of those that phone is mine.

And my WiFi AP does 600 megabits....

If that's true then the sale of those items should be better controlled. If I walk into a government subsidized bookstore and they let me buy 1000 copies of the same book and walk out the door then there is a problem.

I imagine the team(s) that responded to the security threat didn't know it was a drill. I think the idea was to create the situation using a real security hole but with the cooperation of an engineer that was playing the part of a "tricked" employee to allow the vulnerability to be exploited in a realistic way. I ASSUME that the team members responsible for the creation of the exploit program were not part of the team(s) that responded to the incident.

I love Star Trek, but this isn't Star Trek. Although we should prevent accidental contamination of another ecosystem, I don't think we should freak out if it happens. Natural cross-contamination (meteors, etc) stand a good chance of being the reason there is life here on Earth.

Maybe is was an R/C plane as others have suggested and possibly it had accidentally gotten out of range of the transmitter. I know technology has changed a great deal since I was in the hobby but it used to be that if your plane/buggy got out of range of your radio the servos would stay in whatever position they were in at last contact. Even at that time there were devices available that would put the servos in a pre-programmed position in that event. I assume this has probably been built into newer hardware but maybe not and certainly a failure is not out of the question.

Does it distinguish between true criminal intent and the desire to smash the display for being so nosy?