It's only partisan if the community's split on the issue -- it's not partisan to be against slavery or support women's suffrage, even though it once was, and it's rapidly becoming non-partisan to support equal rights for gay relationships.
If he were publicly in favor of warrantless wiretapping, he'd be catching even more crap about it from the tech community, yet the tech community is even further out of step from mainstream society on that issue.
Apparently it does matter to quite a few people here. If the community represents society as a whole, then it is a serious issue. If the community does not, then this is a tempest in a teapot.
There are a few possible meanings of partisanship. The definition most relevant to American politics involves acting/thinking along party lines, as opposed to thinking independently about specific issues.
