I think the title is backward — the article discusses power as a threat to privacy and encryption, which is often the case. If everyone had perfect privacy from those in power, the tax system would be entirely based on honor, and no one would have government-issued IDs. Encryption does not significantly impact metadata collection, and its use could be a signal (no pun intended); and a single warrant can revoke a fair amount of the privacy that has been granted.

I believe that an educated population poses a greater threat to "power" more than anything else. If more people understood what encryption is and how it affects the integrity and confidentiality of communication(and understood what those terms mean) and why privacy is important, we would be having a much more constructive discussion or at least adopting a more united adversarial stance against attacks on these technologies and rights, similar to the 90s when the online population was generally more technical and concerned about these issues as a whole.

More than anything, attacks on encryption and privacy should be seen as attacks against the social contract we have with those in power, and they're failing to provide adequate justification for the mass erosion of privacy.