I think a large enough fraction of people are more scared of the external threats that the privacy invasions supposedly help fighting than of the loss of privac

I think a large enough fraction of people are more scared of the external threats that the privacy invasions supposedly help fighting than of the loss of privacy itself. A few events might change that (e.g., a large enough financial failure using the lost/leaked data originally collected by government). I hope the pendulum swings back sometime, but I'm afraid it is going to take a while (10+ years).