The tone is vaguely ellegaic, harkening back to that time when freedom and democracy was the law of the land. Let's see, looking at the 20th century: totalitarianism, the industrialization of genocide, nonstop global warfare (hot and cold), institutionalized tacism and other forms of oppression, CIA trained death squads, pitiful consumer protection stsnfatds , union busting, riots, high profile political assasinstions, colonialisms of all types.
It's hard to see a some kind of serious decline in the progress of civilization ushered in by pervasive surveillance technology.
Furthermore, to the extent that the author is persuasive that technologically advanced and ubiquitous surveillance will be used to maintain the social order, he highlights a weakness in his thesis.
The coming challenges he enumerates, climate disasters, energy problems, migration pressure are not the result of insecure communications. They will come anyway.
IMO he rightly guesses that selling increased surveillance to the public will be easy, as very few people in the developed world want society to fall apart.
Electronic communication infrastructure cannot be ignored by the power structure. Suppose these horrible changes were stopped by our idealistic hackers from being easily used for social control. What would take their place? I shudder to think.
Somehow a world where power can be consolidated by unaffiliated creation of dark networks doesn't sound like much of an improvement.
The quality of a society will be progressed through cultural means. Technology is just part of the fabric of this human world.