What a trite article. To claim that the British are complacent about state surveillance because we all perceive ourselves as "royal subjects" smacks of fire-starting by a Guardian columnist desperately trying to draw attention to his newspaper's position to gather more readers.

There are a number of factors why this is less of an issue in the UK than it is here in North America, including:

1. Brits fundamentally trust their government more - not politics, but the concept that a state government exists first and foremost for the good of the people is more prevalent in the UK.

2. The influence of special interest groups and corporate electioneering is much more muted in the UK.

3. As someone else mentioned, CCTV cameras in themselves are not bad - most are privately operated and NOT linked to a central government data store.

4. As someone mentions in the article comments, the UK has been a target of terrorism for much longer than the US.

5. Increased education levels in the British armed forces, garner more confidence in the military to do the morally correct thing given a tough decision.

6. Britain is institutionally far more liberal than the US with less interference in policy from religious extremists and a history of judges making activist decisions in order to preserve civil liberties where legislation threatens to undermine established convention tantamount to constitution (given the choice I'd rather have a country that is self-restraining and no constitution than a constitution that restrains, but a government that looks for ways to usurp it).

This is not to say that there is not a worry about civil liberties in the UK - you only have to look at the furore about the proposed introduction ID cards a couple of years back to see that the Brits care a lot about civil liberties, they just see the threats in different terms.