Originally Posted by Bart
True. And I respect your view about how much personal information we should give to the government. My biggest criticism against privacy advocates, though, is how they say almost nothing about how much personal information is given to non-government enterprises. The threat of identification theft is more likely from mailing lists and other seemingly innocent information collection "customer marketing" practices than from what is given to the government. To clarify, I do advocate keeping the government out of my personal affairs as much as practical, but let's not ignore what in my opinion is a greater danger resulting from everyday common marketing practices.
Government has greater power over us than do private enterprises. Yes, a business can send me spam emails, but the government can imprison me. A business can refuse to give me a mortgage, but the government can refuse to allow me to travel in my own country. What's annoying in the private sphere is singularly terrifying in the hands of the government. Higher standard, and all that.
That said, I consistently refuse to give private businesses my email, phone number, SSN, zip code, et cetera unless these are absolutely necessary to receive the service requested. I've walked out of stores and refused to make a purchase after the clerk wouldn't give up asking me for my zip code. I also routinely give false addresses, phone numbers, and the like when it's clear the business has no need to know. Avis rent-a-car is not going to imprison me for purposely transposing digits of my phone number, but in this era of travel security hysteria the government just might.