[post-post-edit[[The funny thing is, I wrote this before reading the last portion of your post. No joke. I'm pretty sure the more our privacy is invaded, the more singular an entity a collective mind becomes. (half joke).]]]
It still doesn't fix that I feel like we are one step away from the complete loss of thought privacy. I'm 28. I grew up essentially connected to a computer. Half of my personality exists always, in a computer. My entire social life is on the computer, for the entire history of my history. The image I see my existence as is literally half mechanical (I study a lot of math and computer science and code a lot) and half physically organic, and potentially half abstract mental 'thought idea stuff' (extra halves for pointing out that the world is a wibbly, world place).
Should the government have been allowed in the past, to have meticulously documented my childhood, my adolescence, my adulthood? Should they have access to my baby photographs? To my first boyfriend? To our first conversations?
How does that affect who I choose (or chose) to grow into? Is every step I take a step out of a fear of not conforming to both the present ideal of 'lawful person' but also to all worlds of the potential future ideal? When did I become aware of this, as a child? When did I decide I was cognizant enough to have made this decision? Was it when I turned 18, or was it when technology reached a certain age for the entire population?
Do I have to think about every possible way that people can perceive my actions, in order to make sure I stay the way I see myself - which is fundamentally on the basis that I am a good person?