Second, our system is essentially set up to make me powerless. It's actually engineered that way. I do what I can to educate people around me, but when it comes to voting or having any control over who's in office or who officiates our most important government positions, the ball's not just not in our court, it's on another planet.
Technology, as you said, will continue to get much more advanced. I reckon at some point, literally every moment of our lives will be perfectly catalogued, from birth to death. This is why what Mr. Comey wants scares me so much, because you can practically hear him salivating in that letter.
We have guarantees built into our constitutional freedoms, and one of the most important guarantees is that the government can't compel us to do things. Sure, there are laws to maintain the peace and common order, but you don't have to house or attend to military in your home, you don't have to testify against yourself, you're not compelled by police to follow their wishes until you're under arrest (which they ostensibly can't do without probable cause), and you don't have to aide in an investigation if you're not involved. These are vital because the moment we're legally compelled to aide investigators, all bets are off. We are no longer able to even protect ourselves against undue search and seizure.