re: Interestingly, and I think importantly, we have forgotten 9/10/01

It's what all politicians do. They capitalize on an opportunity with fear. We just hand over our freedoms cause we allow them to scare us.

Happened in '01 it's happening now in '21

Surprisingly CBS covered this only months after 9/11. The attacks were essentially a license to steal. Huge increases in defense spending and off-the-books operations, all in the name of national security.

CBS News Article

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I’m embarrassed at the amount of tyranny dressed as patriotism I swallowed in the years after that.

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I think there’s always a balance of safety and liberty that we have to measure.

We say give me liberty or give me death, and I think most mean it, but when dire situations happen (9/11 and Covid,) we’re willing to put a hiatus on the liberty part for a while to get our feet underneath us. Not saying it’s correct, just that we’re all irrational humans at time.

I don’t begrudge people too much for the surveillance state and war in the ME right after 9/11 and the freak out lockdowns last March and April. Irrational humans acting out.

I do begrudge the politicians that saw them as an opportunity to make emergency statutes forever law.

I’m reminded of Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus who was asked to be a dictator twice in his life. He rallied his troops defeated the enemy and went back to farming after the threat was over. He was given the power twice and ruled for a total of 36 days, relinquishing it happily.

We don’t have any Cincinnatuses any more.

I miss friends and family waiting for you just as you stepped out of the plane and you being able to wait for them right there. Following 9/11 I saw this change all over the world in my travels, not just in the US.

For my work, my citizen's clearance to go on military ships and subs became nearly null and void. It just became too time-consuming so I got out.

LINK

The video of that CBS story

Before you throw out your “nope” let’s recognize that my statement was regarding historical context.
I would say that if we rank in the middle or slightly better than western nations on a freedoms index in current times, then when you compare us to societies of the past 2000 years I would guess we have more freedoms than many.

Also not saying the deep state and current admin etc are not severely flawed and threatening. However the OP referred to life as the common man lives it, and my point was that many people I know have their quality of life affected more by fear of losing liberty than and their desire to fret over it on social media than by any actual law or government influence. I would also say that for me personally, I find more of an threat with social media and it’s associated psychological anesthesia or destruction of basic human empathy than I do with government overreach….. if I’m considering it’s affect on my quality of life. The fact that one of the main concerns on this thread is not being able to say goodbye at the airport gait supports that.

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If the government is monitoring me in metadata collection I struggle to know what in the hell they would be interested in with my life.
My personal data is likely worth more to corporate interests after my money than the government.

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One of the biggest problems we currently face in this country is the very clear reality that the metadata you are talking about is being gathered not by the Government, but by the corporate interests you mentioned later in your post on behalf of the Government. Big Tech has, essentially, become the surveillance arm of the Government. We've allowed it, hell we have facilitated most of it. Big Tech is joined at the hip with Big Government, and it is by design.

Their ad campaigns have convinced you to have a GPS tracker in your pocket at all times. That tracker also constantly records all that metadata you mentioned. Their ad campaigns have convinced you to put similar devices permanently in your vehicles. Their ad campaigns have convinced you to wear a bracelet that monitors your health for them and uploads it regularly to "the cloud". Their ad campaigns have convinced you to wirelessly connect every single electronic in your household to the web where they can monitor everything from your wife's hot flashes to how much beer you drink. Their ad campaigns are designed by the same people who lobby and rely on big government for business, the same people who often are dependent on Big Government for contracts. They work hand-in-hand. Any efforts they make to "bolster their security and protect your privacy" is little more than theater.

For the health and viability of our country Big Tech needs to be completely decoupled from Government. The influence of each on the other needs to be thoroughly monitored by citizen watchdog groups. That will never happen, though, because neither party wants that.

I agree we have willingly sold away some very private, useful, and sacred info to big tech(actually the genetic info companies like ancestry.com etc is harvesting is quite terrifying). But how much this is driven by corporate greed and how much is government overreach is where the lines blur for an unenlightened simpleton like myself.

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But how much this is driven by corporate greed and how much is government overreach is where the lines blur for an unenlightened simpleton like myself.

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Unfortunately, those two are indistinguishable from each other when you have a power-hungry Government and a profit-motivated tech industry that operates both in the government sector and in the private sector. Those companies purposely blur the lines between the two for their own advantage.

There can't help but a conflict of interest when those companies are pledging to protect your privacy while at the same time competing for government contracts. It is a laughable proposition that the two can coexist.