Without this value, the state can continue to erect legislation in the name of "safety", or any other perceived inequity in society, until you can no longer move.
How perverse that English law used to be a bastion of civil liberty protections. Here's a great scene from A Man For All Seasons that shows what I mean: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDBiLT3LASk
If you mean liberty as in Human Rights, it waxes and wanes. Broadly speaking in the EU in the 90s/00s human rights were improved and expanded. The European human rights courts were strengthened, more laws passed aimed at opposing discrimination. And the Human rights act in the UK was codified into law in 1998, for example.
The pendulum is presently swinging the other way, mainly due to a populist revolt against mass migration to Europe. It also doesn't help that mass surveillance has become so cheap and an easy way for politicians to be 'tough on crime'. Plus American tech treats privacy as a revenue model rather than a right, and that bleeds into policy expectations via lobbying.