Firstly, this argument isn't just limited to the US. But what the US does has repercussions for the rest of the world, particularly the UK.
So on that, have people been arrested (and otherwise harassed) for political views in the UK? Yes. There were around 150 known activists tracked and arrested before the Royal Wedding here because they might 'cause a scene'. An incredibly trivial example that highlights perfectly well the type of problem that you have when you create a society with multiple, overlapping and unaccountable layers of surveillance.
There are a number of other examples (Occupy London, UK Uncut, some animal rights groups, anti-fracking groups) where people have been 'pre-emptively' arrested and detained, only for the charges to be dropped months later after restrictive bail conditions were imposed, off the back of surveillance enabled by technology - fake cell tower SIM gathering, facebook monitoring (It's not just limited to 'the internet').
Protest and activism (i.e. 'political views') exist on a spectrum, and the line where that crosses into illegal activity is far further than the police would have you believe, but that does not, and has not, stopped them using those same laws (and tools, and technology) to enforce political (small 'p', and not necessarily governmentally inspired) views of 'proper' behaviour. There are dozens of examples of similar behaviour in the US for the last 30 years. Some are 'on the internet', others are not. Gary Marx's work is a great place to start for those examples. http://web.mit.edu/gtmarx/www/garyhome.html
I'm sorry, my point was specificaly about the US which has an almost religious relationship to its right of speech. Something that, to my knowledge, doesn't exist in Europe for various historical reasons.
Thanks for the interesting facts about UK though. Although i don't think the internet has changed the nature of any state. Countries that abuse internet surveillance now probably abused phone wiring and police investigation on individuals before.
That's exactly my point, though (and was to the French guy below). Your original point was 'have people in the US been arrested after being wiretapped or spied on over the internet?' Yes.
The argument is always made that they were 'planning/conspiring' a particular act, something that's rarely taken through to prosecution/conviction, it's a well known harassment technique (as was overtly surveilling people with 'undercover' cars and foot patrols) by the FBI and the larger city police departments.
So yes, people have been arrested for expressing their views, which were caught via surveillance, because law enforcement abused the information they had and brought trumped up charges. The UK examples I gave was because I'm more familiar with the stuff here - the US has a great and grimy history of abusing surveillance powers, from Hoover's FBI onwards.
So on that, have people been arrested (and otherwise harassed) for political views in the UK? Yes. There were around 150 known activists tracked and arrested before the Royal Wedding here because they might 'cause a scene'. An incredibly trivial example that highlights perfectly well the type of problem that you have when you create a society with multiple, overlapping and unaccountable layers of surveillance.
There are a number of other examples (Occupy London, UK Uncut, some animal rights groups, anti-fracking groups) where people have been 'pre-emptively' arrested and detained, only for the charges to be dropped months later after restrictive bail conditions were imposed, off the back of surveillance enabled by technology - fake cell tower SIM gathering, facebook monitoring (It's not just limited to 'the internet').
Protest and activism (i.e. 'political views') exist on a spectrum, and the line where that crosses into illegal activity is far further than the police would have you believe, but that does not, and has not, stopped them using those same laws (and tools, and technology) to enforce political (small 'p', and not necessarily governmentally inspired) views of 'proper' behaviour. There are dozens of examples of similar behaviour in the US for the last 30 years. Some are 'on the internet', others are not. Gary Marx's work is a great place to start for those examples. http://web.mit.edu/gtmarx/www/garyhome.html
Tl;dr - yes.