[ClumsyPilot]

In principle your arguments are reasonable, but i don't think they are achievable.

Trust is cool, but it's a system designed for friends and family. Can you trust 300 million people with you internet banking password? It's statistically inevitable that some or them are dumb, evil, crazy, or all of the above.

"isn't really an argument for/against privacy... it's an argument for reform."

I don't think its possible to reduce laws to such an extent, lawyers can't know all the laws in the same way developers can't know all the code, and you can't fit all the code of a modern computer into something manageable. Every country I know of is in a similar situation.

Basically thats why we have warrants for search, right to silence and make dragnets illegal.

Also world without privacy is a world where anyone can impersonate you and commit fraud, and anyone can sue you, and even if they loose, financially ruin you.

[onethought]

I agree on all fronts. I don't think we should aim for zero privacy... and you are right it could be a dystopia existence.

But there is a balance where if we view trust as the key, and privacy as the ability to control trust. Then we can come up with solutions that may compromise privacy to some degree but maintain trust. (I don't know what they are, I'm speaking in the rather useless abstract).

More we might miss some good solutions if we are blindly protecting privacy (which is the natural knee jerk I end up with)