One of the more insightful passages in the unabomber manifesto (worth reading, especially for technologists) details how technology-driven encroachments on our freedom are inevitable because to stop this people must be continually motivated to avoid a bad thing happening to them, which will never be as powerful as how others are motivated to achieve a good thing happening to them. Privacy advocacy at this point is nearly 100% defensive; it really is exhausting to keep up with the various was in which it is being eroded, let alone participate in actually stopping this erosion from taking place.
"It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt."
– John Philpot Curran: Speech upon the Right of Election for Lord Mayor of Dublin, 1790.
