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WESTERN democracies are founded on a complicated network of compromises, the
best known of which stems from the conflict between the needs of the state and
the rights of the individual. Without compromise on one side the result is
totalitarian government; on the other it’s anarchy. In Britain, another of these
balancing acts is about to be upset. The government is pushing through powers to
control the flow of technical information that could benefit terrorists or
hostile states. In doing so it could seriously damage British science by
preventing—or at least putting bureaucratic obstacles in the way
of—peer review,…