Today's lockdown: have we given something up by assenting?

This morning, as I was getting ready to get on my bike to go to work, I got a robocall from the City of Cambridge. It told me to stay home today. There had been gunfire, and a suspect from the Boston Marathon bombing was being hunted. I don't remember if the message used the phrase "shelter in place", previously unknown to me but now utterly familiar.

I let my coworkers know that I would be working from home today, and went to check out what was going on. There were a lot of updates, serious-l...