The basic idea is that what experiments you choose are also determined, therefore you can never really probe something freely to determine its true nature.
"[W]e always implicitly assume the freedom of the experimentalist... This fundamental assumption is essential to doing science. If this were not true, then, I suggest, it would make no sense at all to ask nature questions in an experiment, since then nature could determine what our questions are, and that could guide our questions such that we arrive at a false picture of nature."
Even if the universe was not deterministic and we had free will (whatever that means!), wouldn't the cosmic conspiracy you quoted still be possible? Whoever wrote that is a fucking moron.
In this scenario if you had free will you could call its bluff at some point. If things are deterministic they could be rigged so you could never do the right experiment to determine the true nature.
The whole idea of free will is a nonstarter. Free will means to act contrary to the laws of nature. No such thing is possible.
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