The world already knows everything about you. It's becoming a matter of who knows what.
For some strange reason, we live in a mental state in America where we allow ourselves to divulge of our whole selves in social media but expect the government not to know what we are doing. Privacy, as it appears, does not really mean completely private. Privacy instead seems to mean "as private as I want to be."
We are sorely out of touch with reality.
At this point in history, given your credit card usage, your SunPass (E-ZPass in other states) usage, cell phone usage, information you provide in tweets and status updates, it is now possible for companies who provide you those services to have a detailed understanding of who you are, where you've been, and what you MIGHT do later. Eric Schmidt infamously said once that Google's company goal is to "know what you want before you do." If you commit some sort of heinous act, or any act at all, the police can pull your location information from any of these companies.
Now, the way I see it, the only thing saving us from true privacy is the diversification of our information. Think about it like this. I post some things on Twitter. I post other things on Facebook. My cell phone location is owned by Apple and AT&T. My email is owned by Google. My work email is owned by work. My pictures are owned by Flickr.
The pictures are a good example. Let's move on from there. I post all the pictures I want to post on Flickr myself. Obviously every picture I take with my phone does not get uploaded for the world to see. However, Facebook does do that. Every time I open the Facebook app on my iPhone, it takes the opportunity to upload every picture I've taken to some private 'bank' which makes sharing photos at a later date easier and quicker. Watch the paradigmatic change here. The only Internet company that owned my picture bank was Flickr. Now it is Facebook and Flickr. Google+ is doing this too.
Now, just in that small way, the diversification of my information is unfortunately diminished. Now Facebook not only has the information I was conscious of it having, it has the information I wasn't immediately aware it had, with geo-location.
It's happening in other places too. AT&T used to be the only place my text messages were housed. Apple stole a majority of them away with iMessage. Facebook and Google are actively attempting to steal with rest with their new spectacular Messages and Hangouts apps. These companies, once informationally split, are increasing their knowledge.
This is how I understand the fear of government intervention of information. We live in a perpetual state of fear in America that the government is going to overrule us and we will all go down in a blood bath of tyranny. That's why we want guns, after all. We don't want Big Brother Obama coming in to our privacy and finding out about what we do in the heat of the night. This fear, although over dramatized 99% of the time, is found within the lack of diversification.
If Facebook and Google continue their ways, they'll know everything about you, possibly before you know it. The fear that the government will reach in and grab that information, something we would not have allowed the for-profit company to have if we knew the government would have it too, is what sparks this conversation.
Privacy is no longer a reality if you expect to communicate with the outside world. You need to learn to embrace that or move to the country. You can, however, maintain whatever semblance of privacy is left by diversifying your information. If that matters to you, you should worry about companies that want you to solely rely on their services for your communication.
-B