US police would just start beating you and throwing you into pens, if you are lucky you won't get coated in pepper spray or hit by a sound cannon.
Watch the DNC and RNC conventions next year for examples with their multi-million dollar taxpayer funded "security".
But I guess this indicates police everywhere can now just record the phone numbers of everyone in the area to mark people for "watching".
If there was even the smallest "attack" on police in the US, every person at the riot would be dead, beaten and imprisoned, or hunted down, which is why this never happens fortunately.
Have you seen the police at demonstrations this decade? They are para-military equiped. Body armor, fully automatic weapons, even mini-tanks from decommissioned iraq/afghan military use. I am not exaggerating.
It stands to reason that the rate at which escalation occurs directly correlates with the usage of violence by a government, and that the correlation is with the rate of escalation rather than the maximum level of tension.
Or, more to the point, the level of violence applied by a government depends on how quickly shit hits the fan rather than how badly of a mess there is.
If shit hits the fan in America, it will hit it very quickly.
I remember that the dutch police some years ago already used so called "sms-bombs" to contact mobile phone subscribers that were around a crime scene months before.
It is simply inherent in the technology. You wear a mobile phone? (not even smart) So you are traceable with all consequences.
The solution? In any case not technical in nature. We will see.
Put your cell phone in flight mode and use it exclusively as a PDA/music player/etc.
Let people contact you on a landline and email - more than enough.
I know its true of phones that are "off" without the battery removed - stands to reason it applies in flight mode too.
Since the power button is a 'soft' switch, controlled by the phones operating system, it's possible that a phone can be compromised so that even if it appears to be 'off' it is actually still powered up and listening to the cell network, but this is in no way a 'standard' feature. The same attack vector/vulnerability is present for flight mode, a compromised phone can lie and report that the radio is off when malicious software is using it.
Removing the battery is a mechanism to preclude any possibility of your phone being exploited, and may be appropriate depending on your risk tolerance and/or threat model.
if you have a tinfoil lined bag (like a thermo lunchbag), it's even easier than removing the battery.
If you're doing something illegal, or talking to someone about something illegal, leave your phone at home, and use your $15 dumbphone with an unregistered throwaway sim.
Two years ago when he told me this I thought he is a tinfoil-hat paranoid person but now I know he is right.
But if you hang out just a little bit with pot heads in eastern Europe you know the best solution is to turn off your phone and take the battery out when you don't want people tracing you or lightening to your conversations.
Just switching SIM cards may change what account info you're using, while still providing plenty of information for determined investigators to use.
The solution can be political, too, and it would certainly help, but I think it's a lot less sustainable from government to government.
I don't think the world has changed much since WWII, just that the crimes are more nuanced and better hidden.
Combined with the "meta-data" collected by the NSA, they can easily probalistically identify the core members of any dissident group to focus their national security efforts on.
I do agree that the conventions should not be afforded public protection, however those two conventions are an extension of the ruling party. The one percent are more than willing to have us foot their bills.
This comes from Soviet Union's militia mentality that people aren't enemies. It already changes as Ukraine (and other former republics) fully converges to democracy.
Here is a live feed of the scene, which is essentially an on-going street battle now[5].
[1] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BelRC9RCUAAbRNZ.png [2] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BelT6nzCcAAWytp.jpg [3] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BeljSy1CMAANJFo.jpg [4] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BelVNWSCQAAr1l-.jpg [5] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrZcAsPKK74
edit: Video of the police scuffling with citizens in the street during the man's shooting then dragging his body away, along with an interview with the man that filmed it was submitted and published by the BBC[1].