I don't take much issue with the first part of your assessment, but you might want to take a look at the last eight or so years of SCOTUS vs DOJ. It's not exactly one sided.

Um, the Supreme Court wouldn't necessarily have a compelling reason to take up the case if the 2nd and 9th are in agreement. The quickest way for this to go to the top would be for the 9th to sustain the ruling for the EFF's client and then there'd be a 9th-2nd split.

Well put a bunch of Firsters on one side of the room and a bunch of Seconders on the other side and then let them do battle with their respective speech and arms and see who wins.

There's probably a lesson or three in there. Figuring it out is above my paygrade though; that's why I'm so appreciative that this country has an independent judiciary making sure that the people with the arms aren't able to just simply apply force majeure to prevent free speech...

Ok, Mr. McCarthy - why don't we just get you and Mr. Murrow to have this conversation on the air?

What? It's not like mob rule had anything at all to do with the downfall of the Roman Republic ;) Besides - even if it did, it took an emperor to get pax. After six civil wars inside a century, who wouldn't be ready for an imperator?

For those interested in the list but too lazy to read federal documentation (who isn't?) - here you go:

a) Avian influenza virus (highly pathogenic)

b) Bacillus anthracis

c) Botulinum neurotoxin

d) Burkholderia mallei

e) Burkholderia pseudomallei

f) Ebola virus

g) Foot-and-mouth disease virus

h) Francisella tularensis

i) Marburg virus

j) Reconstructed 1918 Influenza virus

k) Rinderpest virus

l) Toxin-producing strains of Clostridium botulinum

m) Variola major virus

n) Variola minor virus

o) Yersinia pestis

Here's a direct link to the dual use research of concern (DURC) policy.

My main concerns will be whether it's going to have a chilling effect on research; especially when it's also unclear to me whether this will have any useful impact beyond another layer of red tape. We already have IRBs, biosafety committees, and select agent lists, and I'm unsure that such a "volluntary" system of a PI tagging their own research for extra bureaucracy will make much headway before a problem occurs.

Hmm... Now there's a possibility. Find a symbiotic gut bacteria which can render fossil fuels edible.

The gizmos, gadgets, and Mac Guffins are merely there to help us ponder the question of "how would the ability to do such and such impact human life/culture/civilization/etc... ?" If that question is ignored, then the story - regardless of the do-hickeys involved - belongs to another genera: perhaps adventure, fantasy, or something else. The question can be treated at the highest levels of galactic civilization and politics or at the lowest levels of an individual's life, but it is the quintessential aspect of Science Fiction.

This will still only work for middle class as long as the colleges are tied to video/teleconference systems running with the Polycom tax. There will need to be at least a moderate quality system with high reliability/usability for the lower class to be able to access from public libraries and such. Also, you might want to check you assumptions about entrepreneurs and inventors. In those cases the success of ivy league educations is probably more associated with the ability to afford ivy league education (i.e. initial capital resources) than anything else.

Story is interesting, however, the submission will need some editing before acceptance.

Or if you're really want a guided approach for modern hardware, search for the most recent Ars Technica system guide. They'll list all the components for you - just like legos after that.

Well, on the subject of pedantic, I stream a fair bit of my music over a frequency modulated signal transmitted in the electromagnetic spectrum. Most of my combined audio/visual streaming is on a hard connection between some sort of random access memory to an output device after appropriate signal processing.

Or, stepping the pedantry up a notch, I stream most of my video and text between approximately 400 nm and 650 nm in the EM spectrum and audio via molecular vibrational wave propagation between 50 Hz and 20,000 Hz - both of which use biological systems for final processing.

Definitions could help, but clarity begets pertinence - and who want's that?