*yawn* glad to know slackware supports a processor that's been in production for over 6 years now.

U.S. taxpayers funded DARPA's principle research and development of ARPANET, the precursor for what is now known as the internet. IANA, the agency responsible for managing DNS namespace and IP ranges, was funded directly by DARPA up through 1998 when an act of U.S. congress established ICANN to take this responsibility over from the department of defense.

The United States need not forfeit property rights just because European, Asian, and other nations' decided to connect their sytems and infrastructure to the internet.

Wiping the drive has never been a sufficient method of clearing a rootkit. BIOS, video card sram, CMOS, etc. type attack vectors for malware/virus have existed for decades. Any piece of hardware with static memory needs to be cleared/reset/reflashed etc. Is there something unique about SMM exploits that prevents a system owner from reflashing their BIOS?

The SMM exploit requires that the attacker already have root. You're already screwed at this point.

I have no envy, just a passionate desire to defend the American dream. Maintaining high levels of social mobility means to the greatest extent possible, ensuring one's success in a society is a function of ability and hard work, not a function of one's ancestry. This country has thrived over the last two centuries precisely because we have rejected the European values of plutocracy. Why does society tax my labor? Is the wealth produced by my labor not more valuable to society than idle capital?

"Dynastic wealth, the enemy of a meritocracy, is on the rise. Equality of opportunity has been on the decline."

"A progressive and meaningful estate tax is needed to curb the movement of a democracy toward plutocracy."

"In a country that prides itself on equality of opportunity, it's becoming anything but that as the gap between the super-rich and the middle class is widening." - Warren Buffett, Wed Nov 14, 2007, Senate Finance Committee Hearing

how can you ignore the estate tax in this question?

RENICE(1) BSD General Commands Manual RENICE(1)

NAME
          renice - alter priority of running processes ...
DESCRIPTION
          Renice alters the scheduling priority of one or more running processes. The following who parameters are interpreted as process ID's, process
          group ID's, or user names. Renice'ing a process group causes all processes in the process group to have their scheduling priority altered.
          Renice'ing a user causes all processes owned by the user to have their scheduling priority altered. By default, the processes to be affected
          are specified by their process ID's. ...

Technological innovation in communication by definition expands the ability of the people to freely communicate as they wish. If we accepted your argument that P2P does not expand one's ability to express himself, then what is to prevent government from outlawing any form of technological innovation? Imagine if the internet, radio, television, telephones, etc. were all made illegal. Would this not constitute an abridgement of freedom of speech rights? Why is P2P any different?