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Clearly a politically-biased article. No facts at all, not even bothering to look for them, but a clearly the government is out to get him. And everyone.

coldtea 13y ago
Well, it's not like the police and the state don't do "revenge harassment" for tons of people, from journalists and activists to artists, and hasn't done that historically far before McCarthy and Hoover. From "This Lennon guy speaks against Vietnam war, let's revoke his visa", to "talk to his boss and create commotion to get this guy fired, he's a commie", to "he refused to cooperate with the TSA, let's show him who's the boss here", to far worse. But if you start with the assumption that such things don't happen or only happened "in the past" (perhaps because of a few bad apples), everything sounds like a crazy conspiracy theory. Mainly this stems from a lack of historical knowledge and perspective, so people cannot estimate correctly how possible (and frequent) those kind of events have been (and how little concrete proof is usually available, until decades later, when those things get declassified or a leak happens). They try to comprehend them armed with mass media news reports and school level history knowledge.
- davidw 13y ago
  Either way, politics don't really belong here. Article flagged. Here are the guidelines, folks: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - coldtea 13y ago
    You missed the part which says "Most": "Off-Topic: Most stories about politics". It's not like someone posted some trivial Republicans vs Democrats story. You also missed the part where it says: "Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups.". Do they find this story interesting? Well, it was upvoted to the first page, wasn't it?
    - davidw 13y ago
      See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6120530 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6120530 There's absolutely nothing "intellectually gratifying" about this story. That's not to say it's not possibly important, just that it's not the right place for it. Reddit and many other sites offer discussion of this kind of thing. Very few sites offer quality discussion of hacking/startups, and if this one fills up with politics, there'll be one less.
      - coldtea 13y ago
        >There's absolutely nothing "intellectually gratifying" about this story. Isn't that something for the voting HN members to decide? And haven't they decided already?
        davidw 13y ago
        Did you vote for it because it's fascinating and interesting and you learned something new, or because it angers you and you want to get the message out? Since you seem to say, with your earlier comment, that this kind of thing is "nothing new", what is new and interesting about it to you? If I get a bunch of teenage girls to sign up to HN so they can vote up Justin Bieber stories, is that evidence of Justin Bieber being intellectually gratifying? Well, looks like it got [dead]ed in any case.
- unreal37 13y ago
  I'm not saying it doesn't happen. I'm saying in this case, the OP is inferring an awful lot from a couple of tweets. Call the guy and ask him what happened!
LanceH 13y ago
If it is true as alleged, this sort of article does a disservice to him and what he's working for (to me). I look at something like this and see someone who has messed up and is blaming someone else. There is a "technicality" involved but it can't be mentioned apparently. A technicality would normally be something very specific that would be easy to mention, I would think. On the other hand, I'm sure a bunch of hysterical people will be linking this on facebook as proof that the man is out to get them.

coldtea 13y ago

Well, it's not like the police and the state don't do "revenge harassment" for tons of people, from journalists and activists to artists, and hasn't done that historically far before McCarthy and Hoover. From "This Lennon guy speaks against Vietnam war, let's revoke his visa", to "talk to his boss and create commotion to get this guy fired, he's a commie", to "he refused to cooperate with the TSA, let's show him who's the boss here", to far worse. But if you start with the assumption that such things don't happen or only happened "in the past" (perhaps because of a few bad apples), everything sounds like a crazy conspiracy theory. Mainly this stems from a lack of historical knowledge and perspective, so people cannot estimate correctly how possible (and frequent) those kind of events have been (and how little concrete proof is usually available, until decades later, when those things get declassified or a leak happens). They try to comprehend them armed with mass media news reports and school level history knowledge.

davidw 13y ago
Either way, politics don't really belong here. Article flagged. Here are the guidelines, folks: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- coldtea 13y ago
  You missed the part which says "Most": "Off-Topic: Most stories about politics". It's not like someone posted some trivial Republicans vs Democrats story. You also missed the part where it says: "Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups.". Do they find this story interesting? Well, it was upvoted to the first page, wasn't it?
  - davidw 13y ago
    See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6120530 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6120530 There's absolutely nothing "intellectually gratifying" about this story. That's not to say it's not possibly important, just that it's not the right place for it. Reddit and many other sites offer discussion of this kind of thing. Very few sites offer quality discussion of hacking/startups, and if this one fills up with politics, there'll be one less.
    - coldtea 13y ago
      >There's absolutely nothing "intellectually gratifying" about this story. Isn't that something for the voting HN members to decide? And haven't they decided already?
      - davidw 13y ago
        Did you vote for it because it's fascinating and interesting and you learned something new, or because it angers you and you want to get the message out? Since you seem to say, with your earlier comment, that this kind of thing is "nothing new", what is new and interesting about it to you? If I get a bunch of teenage girls to sign up to HN so they can vote up Justin Bieber stories, is that evidence of Justin Bieber being intellectually gratifying? Well, looks like it got [dead]ed in any case.
unreal37 13y ago
I'm not saying it doesn't happen. I'm saying in this case, the OP is inferring an awful lot from a couple of tweets. Call the guy and ask him what happened!

LanceH 13y ago

If it is true as alleged, this sort of article does a disservice to him and what he's working for (to me). I look at something like this and see someone who has messed up and is blaming someone else. There is a "technicality" involved but it can't be mentioned apparently. A technicality would normally be something very specific that would be easy to mention, I would think. On the other hand, I'm sure a bunch of hysterical people will be linking this on facebook as proof that the man is out to get them.