Things have changed, for the absolute worst, and it is likely that the surveillance state will be forever, since the psychopathic global elites who rule our local elites, whatever the merits of all the present restrictions, are not likely to want to give up power. It will be just a depicted in the film version of The Lord of the Rings, where all of the bad guys wanted the ring of power, a symbol, of, naturally, power. His guy would know:
https://thenextweb.com/neural/2020/03/25/snowden-warns-the-surveillance-states-were-creating-now-will-outlast-the-coronavirus/
“Governments around the world are using high-tech surveillance measures to combat the coronavirus outbreak. But are they worth it? Edward Snowden doesn’t think so. The former CIA contractor, whose leaks exposed the scale of spying programs in the US, warns that once this tech is taken out of the box, it will be hard to put it back. “When we see emergency measures passed, particularly today, they tend to be sticky,” Snowden said in an interview with the Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival. The emergency tends to be expanded. Then the authorities become comfortable with some new power. They start to like it. Supporters of the draconian measures argue that normal rules are not enough during a pandemic and that the long-term risks can be addressed once the outbreak is contained. But a brief suspension of civil liberties can quickly be extended. Security services will soon find new uses for the tech. And when the crisis passes, governments can impose new laws that make the emergency rules permanent and exploit them to crack down on dissent and political opposition. Take the proposals to monitor the outbreak by tracking mobile phone location data. This could prove a powerful method of tracing the spread of the virus and the movements of people who have it. But it will also be a tempting tool to track terrorists — or any other potential enemies of the states.