The problem with privacy is not that we have problems if everyone's stuff is hanging out, but that we have problems when SOME people have privacy and others do not.
The best explanation of how eliminating privacy totally could work is still John Brunner's novel Shockwave Rider.
But privacy, when implemented in law, tends to protect the rich and powerful at the expense of the poor--instead of the well-oof helping the unfortunate, the well-off today make much of their swag off of the very poor....
Many 'social programs' implemented in the US say that they are for one purpose while actually serving another.
An example is the "War on Drugs" (which has been as effective as it's predecesor, the "War on Poverty" and its successor, the "War on Terror."
If one were really serious about stopping drug use from causing problems in a society, testing would be implemented based upon the person's position's ability to cause harm. Under such a program, testing would be implemented upon these lines:
The President would be tested hourly. As would his executive staff and the Security and Military heads--all top level administrators in and out of government would be on this rigerous schedule. Corporate executives included.
After all, these are the people who can misallocate money on massive scale, destroy whole nations and economies.
Under such a plan, people on the bottom, sales clerks, warehouse workers & such would be tested on a random basis and in case of an accident.
Instead, the current system acts as if it is designed to keep people from changing jobs. We test new employee's (prior to their employment) but we seldom test top-level executives (even at hiring time,) and never test them after employment.
The result is that you can use anything you like so long as you stay at an employer, but to change jobs (or get one in the first place,) you must be clean for testing.
Encryption is needed if only for verification of the sender--it is way to easy to falsify a message's origin, and this is unlikely to change in the near or mid-term future.
All communications must, at this point be assumed to be overheard--including pillow talk. Bugging devices are nearly too small to be seen now, and soon will be invisible to the naked eye.
Yes, the monitor(s) is/are almost certainly computer programs. But data can be harvested by programs and condensed into a readily usable form, as the increase in successful large scale thefts using identity theft and software infiltrators has shown.
Privacy is no longer a real option. The only consideration that we may have control over is whether only certain groups (gov'ts, corps) have access toeverything, or whether everyone has access to everything.
Certainly public officials have no 'right to privacy' within their jobs, such privacy is crucial to misallocation or theft, but serves no useful purpose for the general public (whose resources are at risk.)
It is now possible to make an A/V recording of an entier day in the life of anyone with a device smaller than a nanopod. Equiping public officials with such devices, designed to store the data in a secure location for later retreival by a court, would drasticly improve said officals interactions with the publi--and even provide the official with evidence that their actions were just--both particular points with the police and security communities. Like recording witness interrigations, the police would undoubtedly find reviewing such evidence of great value, ssince it is possible to examine a situation much more closely if you can re-run it multiple times. This might well reduce the number of people who are innocent but charged with crimes, and would be certain to decrease the number of criminals released as 'cleared' suspects.
Any encryption of your communications is better than no encryption, just so long as you don't make the assumption that your encrypted traffic is truely secure--it never will be. Any security which can be created can be defeated, by definition using methods not thought of by the creator. (For instance, if I can monitor the inside of your computer, I don't need to decrypt your messages--I'll just read them in clear as you write or read.)
My $50 worth.