FWIW I think the editorial modification of the HN title here from terrorist->person confuses the existing debate a bit. Additionally, it no longer matches the article headline.
While I'm generally in favor of title rewrites so people don't karma whore, editing the HN title away from the original headline seems a step too far.
Are you saying the (albeit original) word "terrorist" wasn't editorializing? All terrorists are persons, but not all persons are terrorists and, realistically, a drone can't tell the difference. Heck, people can't tell... (Remember those old "how to spot a communist" videos? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkYl_AH-qyk ) I'm saying I think the word people is an improvement in objectivity.
When I think "spotting a terrorist", I think seeing a guy put a bomb on the ground, not necessary picking out facial features, which need more resolution. When I hear spot a person, I think "pick out a particular person" [facial features]. This may not be what other people infer, but it's my general gist.
It confuses the existing debate because there were already 60 minutes of comments, like my own, which reference this editorialization. Now that it has been obfuscated away this is slightly confused.
Then that's an interesting statistic in its own right: propaganda is the central debate in such cases. (It's not confusion, by definition.) If it were originally submitted to HN verbatim, with the word "terrorist," I would actually expect more of the focus of the debate to be on that reporting detail.
While I'm generally in favor of title rewrites so people don't karma whore, editing the HN title away from the original headline seems a step too far.