When the news about the NSA’s mass surveillance programs broke in 2013, the bubbling furor over the secret (and potentially unconstitutional) programs led many pundits to claim that a sort of indignant libertarian mindset among the American populace could force the government’s hand in changing its policies.

And, to be fair, the NSA did make a token effort to update its policies after Congress amended the USA Freedom Act, which changed the provisions that allowed the agency to spread its metadata-collecting-dragnet in the first place. Because of the agency’s cooperation with (and sometimes coercion of) American technology companies such as Google and Microsoft, these companies’ data-mining techniques were also put under a harsh spotlight.

But nearly three years later, the country’s “surveillance moment” seems to have run its course. For better or for worse, Americans just aren’t making as much noise about their concerns on who might be watching them or why.

A Pew Research Center study released this month found that while people are generally worried about collection trends in consumer culture and “Big Brother” surveillance that puts their personal data up for sale or storage, they are also more willing to offer up that data if it means getting something in return, such as discounts on items, for example (47 percent said they would allow companies to track their purchase history to receive bargains).

This ambivalent mindset toward data collection and surveillance is nothing new to those that have studied the public’s attitude on the topic. A 2013 study of 1,000 people found that “73 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds and 80 percent of 25-to 34-year-olds said they are ‘concerned about online privacy.’ ” Yet only 26 percent of those two age groups said they read online privacy policies regularly.

For many people, the costs of disengaging from social networks or shopping websites simply outweigh the reward of peace of mind, as far as privacy is concerned. But cutting-edge technologies used by both private companies and governments could take personal data collection to a whole new level.

Facial recognition software has long been a useful tool for law-enforcement agencies. But now, malls, department stores, and other private entities are increasingly using the technology in order to recognize individuals and build profiles based on their shopping habits (as seen in futuristic movies such as Minority Report) or those of people in their demographic. One such project, called DeepFace, boasts a 97.35 percent accuracy rating in identifying individuals when applied to a public-records database. The developer of this extraordinary facial-recognition technology? None other than Facebook, which used user-uploaded and tagged photos in order to perfect its algorithm.

In the 2016 election, government data-collection has taken a backseat to such issues as the economy, immigration, and terrorism. Candidates such as Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., have railed against overbearing government surveillance in the past. But after the rise of ISIS and a terrorist attack in San Bernardino, California, the American public may be willing to once again allow the U.S. government to collect more data on its citizens under the justification of preventing further attacks.

With companies gathering more and more personal data and an election that seems more focused on security rather than liberty, is America’s surveillance moment over? For now, that appears to be the case.