make the entrants build a working prototype *first*, without any governmental money up front

Waitaminute, Congressman. Why would I fund your campaign, if you're not going to vote to give the public's money to me? I thought we had a deal: you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.

I still buy CDs. They're (currently) the best way that I know of, to get music. Better ways are possible but aren't yet widespread.

Tell ya what: go to some live music bars tonight, and if you're lucky, you might find a band you never heard of that you really like. Tell me how you listen to their music the next day. Assuming you succeed (it's reasonably likely but far from guaranteed) I bet you will come up with an inferior approach to buying their CD from them. But maybe not: go on, teach me about a better approach.

The problem is essentially the same as with any other technology we've developed: it's evolving orders of magnitude more quickly than humans themselves are evolving, physically and socio-politically.

Physically and socio-politically?

I think you're implying that without the tech, future humans would be more adapted to better the consequences of tech. I call bullshit.

I don't know if we're much brainier than we were 5k years ago, but if we are, tech is what allowed us to put those precious nutrients and energy into brains instead of muscles.

Furthermore, tech is what allows us to "evolve" socio-politically. Without communications, you're hunter-gatherers who can sneakily backstab competitors without future consequences. Without nukes, it's viable (and possibly even sane, in a horrible evil way) to start a World War. Without tech, an otherwise perfectly admirable person gets sick and dies for no good reason. This goes on and on in so many nasty ways I don't wanna talk about.

The ensmallening(*) of the world is how we grow up. You might not like some of the directions it goes, but look where we're coming from.

We (humans) are not anywhere near ready to live in a world without borders

Maybe you're right, but you're casting it as though there's some progression where later, we might be ready. WTF are you talking about? Without tech you think we'll eventually become "wise beings of pure energy" from Star Trek or Babylon 5?

(*) Principle Skinner is telling me that's a cromulent word, so don't make fun of it.

It actually makes me think the requirement for a passport in the first place is a bit odd.

Sshhhhh! [waving arms frantically] Stop asking questions!

Instead of talking about the power requirements, I've had a different question nagging me for a few decades: Some plasma guns fire straighter than others, thanks to rifling?

If Facebook loses and citizens start pushing for similar laws in other states, it could keep our activities in public relatively anonymous for a bit longer.

No. Laws do not have the ability to put genies back into bottles.

"They" need it? The musicians who want it, already have it. They'll sell you music. Buy it from them.

And if you simply must stream it, instead of playing it from local storage, then stream it from your file server.

Don't have a file server? Bad nerd!

Deus Ex

what in the hell do we actually do about it aside from individual protection?

Protection is it. That's the thing to do about it.

put an end to at least one program... problem is, another grew to take its place

And that is a problem that is all but guaranteed. Even if we put loads of political pressure on our own government to stop being one of the bad guys, our government isn't the only government. And even if you were to magically control all governments: governments aren't the only game in town.

You have to assume an actively hostile network. I don't know why this is such a big problem. I think it's something we can handle.

And if you look a it that way, and "go dark," you'll also be addressing the government problem too. If they can't spy on you, not because Congress talks to them harshly when caught, but because they don't have enough success, then they'll stop. Reading love letters is fun but staring at hex dumps eventually gets boring.

Well, it can't be hypothesis number 2, because this is the team that is fighting against terrorism. So that narrows down the possibilities a bit. HTH.

If they don't have enough people to help, maybe they should consider some H1B's to augment the staff?

Supergreen.

While you were busy 'reading articles', he was busy getting a low ID. BTW, UID 1 never read an article.

I'm suggesting we JAM 2.4Ghz around the Whitehouse lawn.

We need to do that everywhere. It's not as if presidents are the only people who ever get attacked.

Then I'm suggesting we track WiFi signals in an effort to catch the pilot, not the aircraft.

Another reason we have to do it everywhere (and over a broader range of frequencies). If the defender has lots of resources (might be capable of tracking and/or retaliating), then the attacker will use at least one relay node. As attacker, I'd be a mile away transmitting 433 MHz or 915 MHz (*) to the node near the whitehouse lawn, and then that thing retransmits the command at 2.4 GHz (**) to the vehicle.

(*) We're going to try to stay within legal frequencies here, because in the course of the assassination, it's important that we don't break the law.

(**) Per the agreement that the vehicle must receive commands on 2.4 GHz, in order to make the contest fair (***). You have to give the defender a fighting chance. (Your honor is at stake!)

(***) But if the government takes the common-sense precaution of jamming most frequencies and over the entire country of their jurisdiction (to protect all citizens, not just presidents) then one might argue that fairness suggests the attacker should be freed of the 2.4 GHz requirement. I think balancing the rules will be a subtle and important part of formulating the contest rules. It's not as easy as it sounds.