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I've heard about those locked boot loaders. One should avoid buying such devices, but I think it must be possible to hack them open. I don't think there is any legal procedure that can be used against you for REMOVING software or firmware from a device ; and if so, it would be the OEM that would have a strange hardware selling licence. I've never had an intel machine on which I couldn't remove windows entirely (that's usually the first thing I do with a new computer). It is true that UEFI is a pain, but I thought even (though I never bothered) that there are laws in some countries that force microsoft to pay back the windows license if you ask to remove it.
There could be manufacturers that lock down windows in the UEFI. Then one mustn't buy stuff from them. They can make life technically difficult, but I don't see how you could be legally annoyed by doing away with software.
I'm not sure if removing UEFI locks is prohibited by law, but it seems to be prohibited by technical measures on newer processors from both AMD and Intel:
https://libreboot.org/faq/#intelmehttps://libreboot.org/faq/#amdIThat was not my point. The Intel ME is seriously problematic. However, I think it is not as dramatic as it seems at first sight. My point was that one shouldn't buy hardware with windows-locked-up UEFI. One should keep the UEFI but one that allows you to install free systems. Up to now I never had a problem with that. There are European laws that FORBID OEM to lock down an operating system, so there will always be manufacturers that allow Linux installs.
That said, there is (and I have to thank you for those links) a serious problem with that ME (bigger than I had realized) - but I consider that it is their good right. The reason why - even though intel's secret key is essentially the back door in every computer that the NSA would like to impose so much - I'm not really so worried about it, is that foreign states use intel PC too, including their intelligence services. Now, either these people are vastly incompetent and are putting their state's secrets open to read by the NSA, or they cracked the ME and then they are vastly incompetent by using intel machines in the US government because now THEIR machines are open to just any foreign cracker that broke the ME, if this were such a wide open back door. Also, there are too many things that the US government *doesn't* get right if it were true that they can just enter every computer in the world without the slightest effort.
That said, this ME *is* a problem and it is one day going to blow in Intel's face. When a totally unknown party will have hacked into the ME.