From a quick look online: federal CAF has gone from ~$100m/year in the 1980s to ~$4B/year by the mid-2010s. It’s hard to find more recent numbers that don’t combine federal and state forfeiture, but the general trendline is positive. That alone makes it a reasonable target of public interest, especially against the backdrop of larger civil liberty changes in the US.

(Besides, “it won’t happen to you” is not a good argument. It’s very unlikely that a cop is going to shoot me for looking suspicious, but I have a civic interest in other people not being victimized.)