[patejam]

To be clear, I wasn't arguing either way. I was just saying that a single poster on this site is not a way to get a feel for how common an opinion was back then. Your link is a much better start.

And for some reason having that opinion got my original post flagged and collapsed by default, even though I have a positive score...

[belorn]

I don't know why it was flagged but it could be mod intervention in regard to a discussion about tptacek.

As for the link, I mostly made a lazy search just to provide a link to "news articles, politicians, political pundits". If there was multiple people on HN claiming he was not going to get charged by the US then I would expect to see similar opinion outside HN. I thus tested the theory.