I'd agree that in democracies, this is a plausible statement, but in countries governed non-democratically, I'd strongly disagree.

In Western democracies, the leadership is elected (one car argue on the margins as to how open the leadership is to all sectors of the population, but by and large I'd be willing to defend the statement). As such, leaders are accountable to the electorate, and are fairly responsive on issues their constituents feel very strongly about. One such is personal security. People have very little tolerance for threats on their life or on those of their family. Thus, people are very demanding that the government "do something" whenever terrorists threaten that sense of personal security, causing governments to take extraordinary action, even at the expense of personal liberties, privacy, and other important issues. Hence, "Big Brother" can well be a response to the electorate demanding that terror and violent crime be prevented, or at least punished immediately.

In totalitarian regimes, the leadership cannot take any risks that the populace at large will organize and coordinate opposition to the regime. In these cases governments must use all their resources to root out, punish, and prevent any protest or opposition. Favorite methods have included secret police, death squads, para-military militias, neighbors encouraged to tell on their neighbors (and frequently using the government to settle accounts over private matters by falsely accusing each other of sedition), wire-taps, mail interception, etc. All these are not a response to a demand from the audience but are rather done out of the fear of the rulers that the majority will throw them out and/or execute them if they ever allowed organized opposition to arise and survive.