Most likely, they were removed by mods because they were causing a legal fight to be waged with HN as the middleman. Basically, the story will be interesting once they either settle or actually litigate; until then, it's just both sides trying to sway HN.

This thread, too, will likely be removed, which it probably should. Meta conversations like this are not very illuminating. (Site mods try to retain editorial control of the site in order to preserve the qualities that they think make the site great.)