That depends where in the design, manufacture, and provisioning stage this occurs, and by whom. It's quite possible Micah was looking at the wrong signifiers.
We know that the NSA intercepts machines for modification. And it's possible that hardware is generally backdoored. Maybe even by Chinese manufacturers.
But what can one do, if everything is pwned? It's not practical to build machines from transistors etc. There are dreams of open-source hardware. But how could that even be done securely? The NSA can plant agents anywhere, in theory.
I wasn't addressing this. Only the first of your assumptions, that it is somehow possible to escape surveillance.
I'm increasingly of the view that it's not, at least not through individual action.
My interest is, for first strokes, painting an accurate picture of the landscape. Which means discarding inaccurate models and frames.
Among those: that laying low is possible, or a positive (that's precisely the objective of the Panopticon, and self-censorship abd -reegulation are the most efficient), or that individual rather than collective action is appropriate.
It also seems that surveillance itself faces various realities and economies, which can be directly attacked.
