Well, I kinda agree. As i said, even an old Thinkpad isnt perfect.

But then its absolutely uncertain, if the laptop manufacturers can deactivate it completely.
And what if there are more backdoors? After Ed. Snow. you should know that everything theoretically possibe to break ones privacy, will get used or is getting used.
And Intel, being an american company, has to grant the gov access to their backdoors, by law.

I probably sound very paranoid right now. And you wouldn't be in the wrong of you'd tell me to throw away all of my electronic devices and never use the Internet again, because the stuff i wrote here, the mindset it projects, isn't compatible with them and the internet...But well, nowadays you cant give up all this stuff.
And even of you cant trust your hw, at least, you can try your best to choose the most trustworthy hw and sw.

Says me, a person who owns several highly untrustworthy devices.

I kinda feel, that I moved away from the original topic.