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Comment by stronglikedan | Hacker News Reader

> Americans complain about flock cameras and arbitrary border searches – these are common place things in the UK

We complain about those things because we can clearly see that "the UK is an authoritarian state" because they are common place in the UK.

> no one cares

More like people pretend to not care for fear of being locked up for seemly arbitrary reasons, which seems to happen quite a lot over there based on the news reports, because "the UK is an authoritarian state".

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It's not illegal in the UK to say you don't like the cameras everywhere. But if you ask UK people, they seem to actually like them. It's a different culture I guess.

> It's not illegal in the UK to say you don't like the cameras everywhere.

That is exactly how authoritarian state looks like.

"It's not illegal in the <our-authoritarian-state> to do <something-our-authoritarian-state-does-not-like>" (but if you do, you'll be f.ucked. Probably. Because it is not illegal).

No. Nobody is being punished in the UK for saying they don't like cameras everywhere.

I'm not sure why they wouldn't be. People have been arrested for peacefully protesting (https://www.amnestyusa.org/urgent-actions/united-kingdom-ove...), asking who elected the king (https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-62878954), holding up signs (https://apnews.com/article/palestine-action-terror-ban-arres...), flying flags (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/04/02/flag-raising-act...), posting photos of current events online (https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/08/30/fdbr-a30.html), trying to avoid facial recognition (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/facial-recogniti...), and in countless instances where people expressed themselves on social media.

Punishing someone for saying they don't like cameras seems like it'd be perfectly on brand for the UK at this point.

Notice all of these are time/place/manner violations, except for Palestine Action which is explicitly ruled illegal.

If you go to the US inauguration and yell "hashtag not my president!" you'll get arrested too.

You'd be far more likely to get away with it in the US, if you can get past security and the efforts to corral you into "free speech zones". Many people did exactly that.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-tru...

I don't believe if you yell "hashtag not my president" at trump's inauguration you won't be arrested.

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