The point is to catch the eye of people who are just scanning the page. The first thing they'll see is the "TAKE ACTION NOW, Oppose NSA spying!" picture, which sort of leads you to believe this is another PATRIOT act or something. I can imagine someone seeing that, thinking "Not again, this stuff is endless, my senator never responds to my calls anyway", and closing the page.

Obviously ideally people will read past the biggest font on the page, but that doesn't always happen.

I actually agree w/ OP, the message seemed totally unclear to me, and I never saw that initial sentence.

I revisited the page and realized my eye was immediately drawn to the huge propaganda eagle, after which I jumped to the middle of the article and started skimming. Once again I missed the initial sentence. Had to intentionally look for it.

The HN title, which is all I've read so far, leads me to believe this is another Patriot Act. Clicking through, it appears this is also the title of the article, so it's hardly HN trying to editorialize.

Since I have enough information to determine that I don't want the Freedom Act to pass, why would I click through to the article?

>The HN title, which is all I've read so far

So you didn't read the article, which was the original complaint of the root comment. If you can't take 30 seconds to read about legislation that could significantly impact the power of the security state to spy on the American public, you're not doing your duty as a citizen.

Nothing in the title indicated that it was about legislation that could significantly impact the power of the security state to spy on the American public. I thought Obama was legalizing torture.

So why would I read it?

If you keep this point of view, then no one will do their duty as a citizen.

If you take a systemic stance on improving the problem, then you have a chance at improving the rate at which people do their duty as citizens.

Your choice.

A great deal.