I did not give a "political rant". I gave a run-on sentence (for effect) factual description of why privacy is a societal concern above and beyond personal concerns. I did that with historical listing of events. I am not injecting opinion or ranting, but providing needed context to demonstrate why the parent comment was incorrect - and dangerously so.

Also, the topic I wrote about was introduced by the comment above mine, not my doing at all. Stating that nothing bad has come from a lack of care about privacy is an inherently extremely political topic, given that our current government was installed in part due to this exact cause.

If you don't want politics on HN then you don't want HN to exist - politics is inside everything and drives most of the decisions that affect HN user's lives and their work. Talking about startups and hacking culture will always - by definition - be political. To ignore the politics of a situation is to invite totalitarian, fascist rule by specifically catering to them via choosing to ignore their lawbreaking even when it is on-topic in an HN thread, just like this one is.