Fair point, but let's not paint such a bleek picture. Gag-orders are an unfair (unconstitutional?) weapon of tyrannical regimes and should be condemned as so.

Fair point, but let's not paint such a bleek picture. Gag-orders are an unfair (unconstitutional?) weapon of tyrannical regimes and should be condemned as so. Aside from taking political action to remove that tool from big brother's arsenal we as hacker/entreprenuers can build systems and strategize on how to mitigate and avoid gag-order scenarios altogether. Perhaps this is pie in the sky but a future where open hardware is as ubiquitous/accessible/easy to use as open source software would make it easier to change chips or gut your laptop and re-build it with hardware that you can trust.