The more I think about it, the more I come to the conclusion that privacy, as we currently know it, is a short lived phenomenon due to increased anonymity of large masses of people without the corresponding technology to accurately track information coming from them. The hundred person village of the past had little anonymity. The teeming metropoli of the future will have little as well. Privacy is information, and information moves towards more access, not less. As much as it pains me to admit it, there are parallels between privacy/surveillance and patents, copyrights and DRM, but the the roles are often reversed.

That not to say it's all bad, there are some possible upsides to a world with less privacy. For example, with the lack of any expectation of privacy for vast swaths of the average day, we may see a shift to people aligning their beliefs and actions, and that may be made easier by a shift in some of the less tolerant beliefs. This would by no means be a guaranteed, it would take work.

In the end though, I think whether privacy is somehow protected or not, one of the most important things we can do is make sure we are informed of, and inform the public of, what's likely and what's possible to have intercepted by surveillance. No matter the outcome, that's useful information for everyone to have, so they can act accordingly.