I believe such things have happened in the US, too. Several years ago when I lived in Virginia, I was told by a fellow I met that he and a friend were sitting on his friend's porch in Fairfax, Virginia quietly playing acoustic guitars when a sheriff pulled up and told them, "You can't do that here." I don't know from personal experience that this is true; it's just what I was told. I escaped the People's Republic of Viginia when the county I lived in (Fauquier County) passed a tax on writers and artists that was 2.5 times the rate of the tax on retail merchants and developers. They told me I had to buy both a "writer's license" and an "artist's license", so I told them to stuff it and moved away. I was fortunate to have this option. But it has been my experience that governments will do anything they have the power to do--or think they can get away with. All governments tend toward tyranny; that's just the basic nature of the beast.