HN as a whole? No. But I have frequently seen pro-surveillance comments highly placed and more than a few politely spoken criticisms flagged. This perspective

HN as a whole? No. But I have frequently seen pro-surveillance comments highly placed and more than a few politely spoken criticisms flagged. This perspective may be biased by what actions are more memorable-- someone saying something I agree with in a way I've heard before isn't very memorable. But a top contributor aggressively apologizing for absurd government overreach and attacking whistle-blowers for months at a time is very memorable. At the end of the day the extreme levels of government overreach -- the industrial scale levels of unlawful surveillance, the multitude of improperly handled security vulnerabilities, and so on-- requires that the tech industry be complicit in this unlawful and unethical conduct at least to an extent. I've found it much more comfortable commiserating with civil rights activists who are _not_ involved with technology than talking to audience like the one here at HN-- at least with people outside the tech industry I don't have to worry that the person I'm talking to has a day job building information weapons which are being recklessly deployed against the public. BTW, the comment you're responding to has now itself been hidden.