Very interesting piece. One preliminary comment: I'm not quite persuaded yet that this piece has demonstrated that the choice between freedom and safety is a false one. I think there can be very persuasive arguments made that in many circumstances, freedom is a better choice than safety. However, I'm not sure the tension between the two dissolves so easily. I think your piece does more to make a case for freedom (since safety is impossible due to locks being circumventable) than it does to demonstrate that freedom and safety are not in tension. There may be a point to be made though that increased freedom in some circumstances increases safety - that might also be what you are getting at. If that's the case, I think that point could be more explicit. However, specifically with respect to lab synthesization of biological warfare implements, I think the argument that freedom increases safety might be difficult to make. Maybe the safety increase could come from full freedom to share information leading to antidotes for the weapons. But what if there are no antidotes? Then there would seem to be safety 'costs' to the freedom.

I think the argument for freedom would have to be from first principles, that freedom is precious, futility - that restricting freedom would not work, or that restricting freedom in the area in question would have offsetting perverse consequences somewhere else. I think the piece as it is now leans towards the 'it's futile to try to restrict freedoms in this area' argument.

-- DevinMcDougall - 20 Jan 2012