terrifying. but also so interesting. so far it isn't impacting ordinary people but will that last? interested to see how this data collection impacts ordinary people in the future. its like doug casy says, its something to this effect, liberty is never something thats going to go away, its just that in the future you will have to purchase it. we just better all manage to somehow become wealthy enough to purchase liberty in the future.
I imagine that data collection, at least that which is passive, is going on now through social media channels and through search engine-type collection mechanisms. I guess you could also say that liberty is something that every citizen should work to uphold, both for themselves and the people around them. Liberty tools like VPN access do in fact cost something, but knowledge on how to protect your liberties still has to be worked for. For example, getting off of facebook, keeping your public web postings clean, knowing how to secure your BTC or other assets, etc.
you have to be careful with vpn's. even if they aren't logging ip's their hosting provider probably is.