Americans aren't in much position to complain about free speech in Britain. The US government just imprisoned a man for his connection with a video deemed "off

Americans aren't in much position to complain about free speech in Britain. The US government just imprisoned a man for his connection with a video deemed "offensive" by that government -- if there was any criticism by anyone but a few right-wing cranks I missed it. The man's nominal offense was a parole violation. Whether the government's pursuit of the violation, or the sentence given, were typical for such violations is beyond my expertise. However the government went out of its way to see to it that his arrest (pardon, "brought in for questioning") was known to and photographed by the press. This was an obvious effort to communicate to elements abroad the distate of the government for the video. Maybe he had to prosecuted on the parole violation -- if so, that could and should have been done much more quietly. No one seems to regard this particularly important, which I find very strange. One, anyone in the US who might want to say something "offensive" now has cause to wonder what opportunities they present to discretionary prosecution. Two, and more important, the US government has just validated censorious behaviors of a great many governments. How exactly are we going to complain to the Chinese or Egyptian government for jailing dissenters when we have made a point of doing just that? Worse, we've just told all those dissenters that they cannot be sure that we will be supporting them if they get into trouble. I don't really much care that his offense was nominally related to an international incident, or that he said means things about someone else's religion. The whole point of ignoring such problems is to deny the government _any_ excuse for censorship. Because once a government gets in the habit, it becomes quite easy to find excuses for the censorships it finds in its interests. This was a shameful episode for Americans. Joined to a cultural squishiness on speech "offensive" to one religion in particular, it is disturbing. Join it with a few more episodes of government action and the lot will begin to become dangerous.