UK National police unit monitors 9,000 'domestic extremists'

Freedom of expression means being allowed to make a spectacle. Not by attacking Charles & Camilla, but marching up and down shouting in the daytime, sure.

You are being cynical. You cannot be preemptively arrested for having a "high risk of committing public disorder", which is what happened. Many people, who actually had no plans to demonstrate or do anything other than spend the day drinking and trying not to watch the ceremony, were subjected to dawn raids for no reason other than that they are on police watchlists (along with thousands and thousands of other peaceful protestors)

It's so incredibly easy to get on a police watchlist now - you merely have to turn up to a protest to get yourself on file. Pensioners have had files for merely walking along a protest route and then going home.

It makes me feel angry and powerless.

I broadly agree with much of Obama's rhetoric, and I imagine much of his policy (although I'm not clued up on the details, what with them hardly affecting me.)

I do disagree with him/his government on a number of issues though, including the International Law around his use of Drones, the fact that Guantanamo Bay has not been packed up and the people detained there tried for offenses or released, and on his surveillance and national security policy.

Insisting that people either support or oppose a politician 100% is ridiculous. Politics has hundreds of variables; you can't insist on a 100% match before you'll "support," or even "vote for," or even "campaign for" someone - or else the US would have 300,000,000 politicians all voting only for themselves.

Indeed, my concerns are amplified somewhat by recent scandals illustrating improper behaviour on the part of other civil servants: NHS cover ups, covert police smear operations & attempts to undermine the rule of law. When so much is secret, trust must compensate for the lack of information.

I am terribly, terribly afraid that trust is a commodity in desperately short supply. This dearth of trust means that the hackles of suspicion become raised by even seemingly innocuous news. For example, am I the only one to find it (mildly) suspicious that the security services got an extra 100 Million when everybody else got their budgets slashed? What pressure did treasury officials come under? Was it proper, or did something underhand happen?

We will certainly never know the truth, but where the benefit of the doubt may have been given before ... now the supply of trust has been wrung dry.

No, they flouted the rules.

http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2012/01/flaunting-the-rul...

To expand a bit for international audiences: They got a prison sentence. During that sentence they were sectioned. Even if the sentence finishes they can still be held in hospital against their will, because hospital is for treatment, and not for punishment.

In theory there are protections. People have the right to have advocates and mental health act tribunals and etc etc, but as we've seen from a number of scandals[1] the protections are not nearly as strong as they need to be, especially for the private providers. And, weirdly, providers of medium secure forensic units tend to be private sector providers.

[1] People with severe Asperger's being detained for very long times because staff cause stress and anxiety which shows as aggression; the Cornwall Report (people with learning disorders being chained to beds) and Winterborne View (people with learning disabilities being trapped under chairs or left out in the cold or punched in the face); the CQC faking reports. etc.