[packet_nerd]

> Right to privacy affects my ability to cover my own ass.

Actually this isn't the most important reason for privacy.

Privacy and other basic rights do very little for me as an random law-abiding dude. I don't break laws, so don't have any reason to cover my ass. I don't have much to say, so not being allowed to express my opinion doesn't seem like that big of a deal. Even in the doomsday scenario where evil totalitarian dictator takes over the country and mass-surveils everyone and otherwise stomps on our rights, it probably won't be that big a deal to lowly me.

The most important reason for protecting individual privacy is to protect the future of society and civilization itself. The average dude in Nazi Germany and Pol Pot era Cambodia probably barely noticed his loss of individual rights as far as daily life was concerned. Mass surveillance enables mass control, and the worst atrocities in history have all happened in environments where individual rights - including privacy - were disregarded. It's bigger than just me. It's about protecting society itself and giving my children a decent world to live in.