I don't have any issue with HFTs that respond only to external news source, the research being done in news sentiment analysis and how to incorporate that into buys and sells might not be great but the HFT players that I take issue with are those that look at price trends and try to snatch penny advantages out of a perceived momentum, that sort of market play is meaningless.

Perceived momentum? I think your idea of HFT strategies might be pretty far off the mark.

Guessing that the market will continue to go up or down (a.k.a 'perceived momentum') is just a gambling strategy used by day traders. There are no long term successful hft operations based on predict the future strategies like that.