The obvious counterargument to HN's policy is that the developers building the next generation of web services should be able to openly discuss mass surveillance and how our present technology enables it. And that, furthermore, this discussion is in the best interest of HN because developers on the whole are obviously passionate about the issue and will be a part of how it evolves in the future, one way or another.

I get HN's policy and the reasoning behind it; I just think it's wrong. Not all important discussions are constructive, and not all constructive discussions are important.

> I disagree that HN wants to minimize "awareness" of these topics

Well, the effect is still the same, isn't it?

> it distracts HN away from the tech/web/startup topics they want HN to focus on

That seems contradictory. If I recall correctly, I've heard the mods explicitly say that they also like non-tech/web/startup topics.

> mods have been clear in the past that, while they agree the topic is important, it distracts HN away from the tech/web/startup topics they want HN to focus on

No, that's incorrect. The first thing the site guidelines say is:

On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups.

There's no question of the Snowden stories being off-topic. The issue is purely one of balance. The right principle seems to me to be that articles with significant new information are more HN-appropriate than those without it.