It's hard to conceive that up until 2008 you could cross the border both ways without a passport. We treated them like the culturally and economically linked neighbors they are. Now it feels like a pointless, hostile interrogation in both directions.
Tor, Tails, Bitcoin, TLS each give freedom. These tools still exist, and still work, and there's a plethora of other tools, too. Something else: security.txt and ethical hacking took off, too.
Patriot Act, Snowden revelations each made us lose freedoms.
Yes, I'm aware of Trump's efforts in this regard, but GOP was rotten ever since Bush. Even before that, right-wing populism existed, too. But WWII was still too fresh for fascism to rise in the West.
Also, law isn't very useful if it isn't applied. For example, copyright law regarding LLMs.