Western democracies would have a very hard time rolling back the “surveillance state” and in fact it’s likely to get worse. There have been example after example where data collected under the auspices of protecting people from harm actually does the opposite. For example, names on a terror watch list have punished innocent people and prevented them from flying, just because their name matches with one in a list.
Messages posted on Facebook can get innocent people thrown in jail, not because they intended to carry-out their threats but just because they used really bad judgement. Despite growing concerns that the surveillance state constrains our freedom, causes self-censorship and paranoia, and costs a lot of tax money without haven proven to be particularly useful, I’m afraid it will only get worse.