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There's a reason websites that host several communities ban such interactions upon the request of the recipient of the traffic; brigading is bannable on reddit.

Except HN keeps the comments on HN, so it's the opposite of brigading.

Have you considered that they may have done this in "self defense" to the abuse this aggregator was causing them?

Besides, by your argument, connecting to websites at all is privilege. HN wants the privilege of reading their content (otherwise why not just block their site) without taking any responsibility for it.

Agree, there's no mandatory standard that there must be valid referrer information on all hyperlinks. It's an optional extra from what I understand.

Similar to how freedom of religion also guarantees the right to not have any declared religion.