[otoburb]

Did I parse that correctly?

You parsed that one specific incident correctly, but sems like you also missed key parts of the article that helped bring a bit more nuance into the discussion. I thought this rather short Nature article was actually pretty balanced. Two key quotes are:

* "“The rules have not changed” under the Trump administration, Grode says."

* "The hazardousness of the materials that the scientists sent will need to be assessed in each case, as will the scientists’ intent in using the materials, but their lack of transparency will make their cases more difficult, Grode says. “It’s not so much what was being sent, __but the effort to conceal what was being sent__,” he says."

[perihelions]

I don't see any nuance in the lying cop.

Nor nuance in the Director of the FBI personally getting himself involved, to tweet falsely about this student's "pathogen [sic] smuggling". There's no nuance in those words—words that incited three thousand conspiratorial-minded comments, by the way—three thousand commenters who sincerely, truly believe this C. elegans scientist is a bioterrorist. (Read them for yourself if you like). Where's the nuance in any of that?

[eviks]

> * "“The rules have not changed” under the Trump administration, Grode says."

The change in enforcement can have just as much of an impact on reality, so this statement alone isn't very meaningful.

[bird0861]

There is probably C. elegans in the soil outside the airport where he landed. There are probably billions of them within 100 feet of you right now.

Gee I wonder why people are being weird about bringing bio samples! /s