It’s slipping off the radar screen now, but my eye was caught by this story of a Mississippi man who swore at Vice-President Cheney and got “detained” by the Secret Service as a result, even though they said he hadn’t broken any laws.

Way back in June 2001 I witnessed President Bush’s first visit to Brussels, and posted about it to Usenet. I finished my anecdote by saying,

I considered waving back but felt that if I did so with any honest indication of my feelings, I would probably be arrested

and several other readers responded that such restrictions on freedom of speech might happen in Belgium, but were impossible in the United States. Well, I see that such restrictions on freedom of speech just might be possible after all in the USA.