I live in the UK and when I raise concerns about government surveillance here people often say, "I've got nothing to hide".
I learnt of a case just this week where a guy on Reddit left a slightly controversial comment and ended up being charged with hate speech, lost his job and received hate abuse online for his opinion.
It was kinda crazy because "all" he said was that didn't care about a teen who died in police custody, specifically that this teen was a, "good for nothing, spice smoking, Toxteth monkey" (Toxteth being a fairly rough inner-city area of Liverpool).
The teen he was insulting was dead and unable to take offence, but the police officer on Reddit at the time took offence and decided to prosecute the guy anyway.
I'm bringing this up because I don't think most people in the UK realise this. Insulting people online or just saying something mildly offensive will often lead to prosecution. I mean just this week an autistic child got arrested for calling a lesbian police officer a lesbian here in the UK.
We all have something to hide when what's right and wrong is this arbitrary.
Legal notes:
I do not agree with the views of the Redditor referenced in my comment. I understand how someone may be offended by what he said, but disagree specifically with it being an offence to state an offensive position online.
I also do not agree with the behaviour autistic child mentioned in my comment. I understand that being autistic is not an excuse for being offensive. Again, I am only bringing this up because I do not believe it should be an offence to offend.
The offensive language used in my comment were direct quotes used specifically to make a point.
"will often": no, not at all. Could occasionally. You're not helping your argument by overstating this. The courts are not stuffed with people being fined for saying things that are "mildly offensive".
And nothing of what you're talking about is government surveillance. The police aren't the government, and the police do not routinely surveil the populace.
They wouldn't have the staff, for one thing! The police actually wanted to close the police station in the town in which I live -- population over 100,000 in the wider borough -- and replace it with what amounted to a kiosk and service from police stations five miles away in each direction.
And yes, really: for those viewers who persist in believing that the surveillance system in Hot Fuzz exists in reality... nope
The police is the dog of the government. What difference does it make to you if the dog or the master attacks you?
But this is not how it works in principle or in practice in the UK. The police work on behalf of the people, not the government. When government manages to suborn the police in even a small way it is very much noticed.
It’s difficult for people outside the UK to see this, I suppose, but our experience with this is that state directed police overreach is now unusual, and there is a lot of pushback from the chief police officers and the public when they are asked to oppress. There are aberrations (no police force in the world gets protest management right, and ours is no exception) but in general you have to be consciously right up in their faces to cause such an aberration.
The UK is a country of realpolitik at every level. The police go about their business unarmed, with the consent of the population, and generally speaking, they know the public will not put up with overreach anymore. We may find them pompous and overbearing but they are pretty much the envy of the world still.
Also it's worth observing that a possible outcome is the majority of people wouldn't want their government overthrown, and the police should act to prevent it. Another is that the police wouldn't preserve a government that does not have the slightest mandate. There is no benefit to the police to do that. (Do you expect the FBI and state police forces to maintain an actually illegitimate US government? Because even from outside, I don't).
Again: Britain runs on realpolitik, not extremist absolutes. At no point would we on a cultural level feel it important celebrate "the peaceful transfer of power", for example. It's just not how our minds work. Our police are small and unarmed. It's just a very different place and the fact that HNers don't really understand it doesn't help with the oversimplifications.
(FWIW, nobody ever needs to overthrow a British government. The party in power usually manages this from within.)