Poll: Have you ever censored yourself on HN for fear of the government?

6 points·jnbiche··5 comments

So the question is: have you ever censored what you wanted or planned to write on HN out of fear that it might be recorded by the U.S. government and used against you in some way?

View on HN

I work/contract for the US Army have to go on base a lot. One week I posted in a conversation about meta-data. For the next 9 days my car was search at the gate as part of "A Random Check" I was told.

On top of this I sent an update to my boss a day I was off site 7zipped, and encrypted (7zip uses AES). The next day all .7z extensions were blocked by *.mil mail servers. On top of .exe which made shipping auto-install updates fun.

Did you call them out on this and say "I know you're watching me?"

I asked why or how I was picked. Guard just pointed out my license plate was on a sheet of paper on a clip board and shrugged.

Its not his fault, or really even his boss. They're just following orders. And my political frustrations aren't really any of his business. At the end of the day their just doing their job and I'm doing mine.

Just what I do off work seems to annoy some people.

I've censored things I've wanted to say, but usually out of wanting to be a decent human being rather than any particular fear of the US government. On the flipside, there are things I have said that make me wonder if they'd alert various intelligence agencies or put me on a list.

There's a chilling effect here and it happens all the time.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com