I've never been super alarmist about this stuff. But recently was looking back and it really is staggering the amount of simple freedoms we've lost in the last 25 years. Partly through government overreach for 'security' and partly through technology becoming so pervasive. It really feels like rules get added regularly, and none ever get removed. Things just get stricter. And with technology we add a layer of self/citizen policing of everything. The 'disallowed' but relatively innocent things we could get up to as kids/teenagers just 20 years ago kids today could only dream of.

As someone who's lived fairly near the Canadian border for ~30 years, yup.

It's hard to conceive that up until 2008 you could cross the border both ways without a passport. We treated them like the culturally and economically linked neighbors they are. Now it feels like a pointless, hostile interrogation in both directions.

Lost, and gained.

Tor, Tails, Bitcoin, TLS each give freedom. These tools still exist, and still work, and there's a plethora of other tools, too. Something else: security.txt and ethical hacking took off, too.

Patriot Act, Snowden revelations each made us lose freedoms.

Yes, I'm aware of Trump's efforts in this regard, but GOP was rotten ever since Bush. Even before that, right-wing populism existed, too. But WWII was still too fresh for fascism to rise in the West.

Also, law isn't very useful if it isn't applied. For example, copyright law regarding LLMs.