Why do I get the feeling that you hope for this outcome, from this comment? And maybe you never visited the Netherlands?
By the way, the boiling frog thing has been debunked many times: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog
By the way, the boiling frog thing has been debunked many times: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog
And even though OP is too dramatic.
The fact is that much of the world news Snowden was revealing already, was common practice in Netherlands for a while before that; and it was publically accepted.
For instance they could & can eaves drop on your phonecalls without any warrant needed from an independent judge. They just need approval from a commission they can create themselves: https://www.aivd.nl/onderwerpen/afluisteren.
There is definitely a big issue with the Government having too much power, lack of independent checks, and being hard to hold them responsible.
It seems to work well for things other than frogs, like normalizing microtransactions and gambling in video games.
I do not hope for it. But if it happens, may it serve as a warning and example to everyone else who has freedom and does not currently cherish it enough. I know that what happened to the truckers in Canada when they had their electronic assets frozen certainly woke up people in Canada to a degree.
Why would they be paying for upkeep of cameras that do absolutely nothing?
It's just such a weird argument that you're making. It's like saying that once roads disappear all the speed cameras are going to be repurposed to take pictures of you walking about to match facial data or something. Technically possible I suppose, but given how these things work it might as well be sci-fi. Government would have to scrap the entire system and buy new devices that do what you suggest, and that's where the whole idea will fail.
In EU we still have some power over politicians. US with its cemented dual party is basically a fasade of democracy. Thats why US people are so anti government.
Everything is always set in us vs them context.
Lets hope this trend will not affect eu countries too much.