None of the sequelae of that have really improved since then, at least as far as the first world is concerned. The foundations of universal surveillance were being laid down, but it wasn’t yet feasible. Police (transport security, border patrol, potato, pot-ah-to) ruffling through your belongings had not yet been normalized. You could transact with cash. People largely still sort of believed that talking to your political opponents would lead to better outcomes than making them comply under threat of government violence or unemployment.

(Plenty of things sucked, don’t get me wrong, it’s just that a lot of the fallout from the “war on terror” was still in the upper atmosphere.)