1. Privacy and secrets are necessary because our society demands it. My identity is crucial for me to be able to borrow money, obtain a bank account, sign paper

1. Privacy and secrets are necessary because our society demands it. My identity is crucial for me to be able to borrow money, obtain a bank account, sign papers. I am therefore entitled to privacy to my own date of birth, mother's maiden name and a host of other so called "secrets". 2. Privacy also reduces the chance I will be discriminated against. If you've lived in a country where the law decides whether you are allowed to purchase land based on your religious beliefs, then you'd appreciate that the less people know about you, the less they can prejudge you. 3. Private conversations allow ideas to be discussed and discarded if they turn out to be wrong or worse still turn out to have ethical issues attached. If every thought are treated as a matter of public discourse that can be held against you in the future, then people will be keeping their mouth shut. 4. One only have to look at how "suspected symphatizers" were killed when South Vietnam fell, to understand that privacy allows people to keep their heads low, and should the environment turn nasty, to stay out of trouble.