> Arresting people for holding up a blank sign is very different and much worse.

On the contrary, it’s no different whatsoever from corralling away protest until it’s out of sight in an approved zone, and arresting anyone who expresses dissent in sight.

It’s exactly the same use of police in concealment of dissent by the state.

> Do you agree it was a problem

Of course, it’s fucking awful. It’s your contention that “nothing like this ever happened in the US” that I took issue with - it does and it’s entirely routine.

This is my very point - the UK is used as some sort of out-there example of Orwellian repression, but the US, often painted in contrast as some sort of bastion, albeit a troubled one, is usually doing exactly the same damn thing.

It’s in this thread. We have your assertions above, and below we have someone decrying how unimaginable it would have been for a government to attempt to wholesale spy on people’s communications two decades ago, seemingly completely unaware of the activities of the NSA in AT&T and other companies’ data infrastructure in the US, revealed in 2006.

It’s a weird mix of jingoism and ignorance.