Here's Harry Truman's advisor on why they started Communist-and-subversive witch hunts: "We did not believe there was a real problem. A problem was being manufactured. … We had a presidential campaign ahead of us, and here was a great issue, a very damaging one, so he set up the whole machinery."

There are many studies backing up your point: In the face of an exaggerated or manufactured "threat," people are willing to sacrifice their privacy and freedom. I'm actually in the middle of a huge story on it I've been researching for several months. Will post a link here.

In the meantime, the question, as raised in some of the comments is: Besides what we give away to or accept from the government because of FEAR, how much privacy and personal information and biometrics are we giving to corporations (and the government for TSA Precheck and similar programs) for CONVENIENCE?