[nickalaso]

We can and should fight back, this makes the job of the surveillance state harder. But my concern is, that I think the problem will eventually get much worse than it is today.

I believe that eventually this kind of surveillance will be run almost entirely by sophisticated Artificial Intelligence. It partially is already, but as the technology improves, the amount and quality of the automated surveillance will increase.

Masks, lasers, cones, they might be quite effective against current technology, but that is going to change as the technology improves and an AI can determine your identity from your gait, or a combination of other features such as the width of your shoulders, the length of various bones in your body, etc. China is almost certainly already working on this kind of software as a direct response to the Hong Kong protests.

Governments will continue to work towards innovating and improving their surveillance programs, specifically in a way that reduces the amount of actual humans that are involved (to reduce the probability of another like Snowden) as well as reduce the visibility of the program to not trigger and go against human's "desire to be free" the article mentions.