ABSTRACT
What is the threat biosecurity aims to counter? Given the contagious nature of the disease and its asymptomatic spread, the threat is co-expansive with society. Everyone can be — actually or potentially — a victim of the threat, but also its bearer. Worse, the threat is reproduced through inter-personal contact and proximity, through society as such. The threat is (in) society. Therefore, society is the target of biosecurity. Biosecurity introduces a universal relation of suspicion — suspicion of others and of the self. It thus makes society impossible. In this respect, biosecurity shares deep similarities with counterterrorism. Biosecurity can be seen as a universal application of counterterrorism: a drastically ameliorated version of the latter that comes to apply not to a few suspects, but on everyone.
