This subject has come up a few times.
My personal view is that privacy is important and it’s a human right that many have fought for over centuries. It’s also being eroded at a scary rate. Recent governments have tried to exaggerate the risks to create a climate of fear so we are all prepared to accept less privacy in return for the unachievable promise of increased security.
This promise is a myth and many of us are sleepwalking our way towards the dystopian nightmare envisioned by George Orwell in the novel 1984. Except that he foretold only a small part of the problem: he saw that once the technology made it possible for states to track us they would want to track us all. He failed however to foresee the rise of corporations becoming bigger than states and that they would become a problem just as big if not larger.
You may want to take a look at this video on YouTube:
Cybersecurity as Realpolitik by Dan Geer presented at Black Hat USA 2014
Or check out this presentation deck from author Peter Watts at a recent “Symposium of the
International Association of Privacy Professionals”
The Scorched Earth Society: A Suicide Bombers Guide to Online Privacy
My thanks to @Boerlum and @dan for providing links to these in previous topics.