While I care a great deal about civil liberties, HN has a topic bias. The TSA situation, while touching on tech via backscatter x-ray, is really a purely political situation: there is opposition grounded either in medicine or general civil rights, but it does not specifically or unduly impact tech entrepreneurs. Shutting down all internet access is far more directly relevant to the web-centric startup world.
It was you who chose to lump in the anti-TSA moderation with this article and launch this thread into that debate based on that relationship - none of the 'site authorities' you mention have commented on this piece, and there has been substantial discussion of the situation in Egypt on HN in the past week. It seems to be fairly accepted that Internet censorship affects us all.
And as for your last point, again, HN has a stated topic bias. You might as well bring up the death penalty or gun control - of course they both affect everyone, and of course most people will have (likely very strong) opinions. That does not necessarily make HN a good place for the discussion.
To close with a question of my own: why are you so set on making this the place for all civil liberty discussions? Given the sizeable overlap of this community with Reddit these days and the clearly stated opposition to holding the debates here, why persist rather than just go there?
Agreed that HN has a stated topic bias. I'm suggesting changing it.
The TSA stuff very definitely affects tech entrepeneurs who have to travel as part of their business. So yes, especially given Paul's quote about the dangers of discussing civil liberties, I do see them as related.
> why are you so set on making this the place for all civil liberty discussions?
We'll only start to recover civil liberties in the US when enough people start doing something about it, so I discuss the topic wherever I hang out. Just as Slashdot used to be, HN's a great opportunity to reach a lot of people who believe in civil liberties but aren't currently engaged in the battle.
It was you who chose to lump in the anti-TSA moderation with this article and launch this thread into that debate based on that relationship - none of the 'site authorities' you mention have commented on this piece, and there has been substantial discussion of the situation in Egypt on HN in the past week. It seems to be fairly accepted that Internet censorship affects us all.
And as for your last point, again, HN has a stated topic bias. You might as well bring up the death penalty or gun control - of course they both affect everyone, and of course most people will have (likely very strong) opinions. That does not necessarily make HN a good place for the discussion.
To close with a question of my own: why are you so set on making this the place for all civil liberty discussions? Given the sizeable overlap of this community with Reddit these days and the clearly stated opposition to holding the debates here, why persist rather than just go there?