I actually don't know how they would compare, at least at the moment. But it just so happens that my girlfriend is a paralegal at a rather large, respectable law firm in town. She will be conferring with her lawyer bosses as the next few weeks go by, because we've been thinking about trying to get our own "Love Police" type thing going on here! I've already begun searching craigslist for a megaphone!
So, yeah, my girlfriend will be researching this, talking to lawyers and her professors, trying to find information
specifically related to how the patriot act affects our first amendment rights, and also our right to peaceably assemble. The only thing of interest that I have found out through her research, so far, is that the patriot act is actually an acronym: the U.S.A. P.A.T.R.I.O.T. act. I didn't know that before! Know what it stands for? It says so in the act itself:
Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism
What a joke!
Anyway, I agree with you, that I've always thought of our European brethren and sistren as being more "enlightened" than us, for lack of a better word. But that doesn't mean that the powers that be have to reflect that through the laws and government over there. Yeah, I was shocked to find out that the U.K. authorities are way more manic about "terrorism" than over here. But at the same time, I don't know what will happen when I try staging some of these "free speech expressions" here in Florida. I only know that it's time for people to go stand in public places and start demonstrating to the masses that we DO have free speech, and we CAN use megaphones, and NO, the police CANNOT ask you to shut up or go elsewhere.
So yeah, I'm fired up ever since finding out about these guys!