The Coming War on General Purpose Computation 
This isn't coming.  A decade ago Sen. Fritz Hollings (D-Disney) ran a bill that outlawed general purpose computers and made it a federal crime to posses a compiler without a license.<p>It's long since been here and will continue. Government officials desire the power to act with discretion to outlaw the computers they don't like and tolerate those they do. The especially want the power to decide after the fact and hold you retroactively responsible for anything they choose. The computer industry with its empowerment of the masses and startup culture is especially vulnerable to the usual bureaucratic power games so we will have to fight in order to lose our freedoms more slowly.<p>The legislators and bureaucrats aren't stupid and they aren't ignorant of the principle of Turing Equivalence. They  love the idea that every computer can be demonized and outlawed at once.  They especially love the idea that every programmer must hope for the forbearance of his superior in the bureaucracy, forever focused on pleasing the big man in Washington on whose pleasure his freedom depends.<p>It's like 1984 where Winston thinks that O'Brien will be his ally in reform because O'Brien understands the corruption, abuse, and evil of the system. Winston was wrong. The incumbents will not improve by being better informed. The horror totalitarian future you want to avoid is exactly the dream they cherish.