[soco]

From what the comments added to this, I would say the best (only?) privacy-favoring aspect in the States is that personal identification is in chaos. Not that you wouldn't have some identification features, but every little corner handles them differently. Nevertheless, the security organs seem to have found effective ways around this chaos, so I'd say that with or without national ID those who need to know know, and the only ones left in chaos are the regular people.