Don't forget the detention centers for "migrants" (often people fleeing war) and the fact that the UK has now legalised a surveillance state that the stasi would have had erotic dreams about.
You both (parent + grand-parent poster) make good points.
I find it mildly interesting that you both should mention the two somewhat incestuous partners, the US and the UK. (I don't live in either, so I may be somewhat insulated from these things and it's pretty easy to forget this stuff when it's not part of your daily life.)
I'm not going to argue that the Guantanamo situation is in any way a good thing, but at least it's not affecting a billion+ people every day. Obviously it's affecting several thousand people (and their relatives) way worse (individually) than the billion+ people are being affected in China.
Regarding the UK: Yes, it's terrible, but then again the UK population hasn't really experienced any real strife wrt. the powers wielded by its state... yet. That is, the populace at large probably haven't had any hands-on experience of just how badly things can go (Stasi, FSB, etc.). I truly hope it doesn't come to a 1984-type situation in the UK. At least it doesn't exist right now (cf. China). (EDIT: I would say that, post-Snowden, anyone who didn't believe that every nation on earth was spying on their own citizens in whatever way they could was probably being naive... but there are a great deal of people who have no idea who Snowden is.)
