Anti
You raise an interesting perspective but as I see it the importance of privacy is inherent in the principles of democracy.

There are legal frameworks that protect citizens from renegade governments and agencies. One way is to limit those agencies which require them, for example, to obtain warrants for surveillance only for those who are considered suspect from other available evidence.

Warrantless surveillance ignores this by assuming the right to trawl through the private emails, phone records, and online activity of every citizen without scrutiny. The scraping of data in this way by the NSA is illegal under the 4th Amendment (albeit there may be differing views on what is considered 'reasonable').

These legal protections are there to prevent abuse by governments and by other groups who may have the ear of government. The difference between dicatorsips and democracies is the containment of government to within certain parameters that allow people the freedom to go about their business unmonitored by big brother. It is about potential for abuse

Developments in Snowden-NSA-GCHQ case:

22 June 2013 US charges Edward Snowden with "Theft of Government Property", "Unauthorized communication of National Defense Information Information" and "Willful Communication of Classified Communications Intelligence". http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23012317

22 June 2013 SMH “London: British spies are running an online eavesdropping operation so vast that internal documents say it even outstrips the United States' international internet surveillance effort, The Guardian newspaper says. Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/government-it/snowden-files-show-massive-uk-spying-op-20130622-2ooyr.html#ixzz2Ww3Z43jI "

17 June 2013 - Edward Snowden downloading and having published UK GCHQ Top Secret docs causes major embarrassment to the US’s major ally (the UK). The UK Government issues a “D-notice” recommending the UK media not print or place on internet US and UK secrets: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jun/21/gchq-cables-secret-world-communications-nsa

A cautionary tale for the Australian government:

"The NSA Has No Idea How Much Secret Data Edward Snowden Took, And That Has Them Very Worried" http://au.businessinsider.com/nsa-secret-data-snowden-took-worried-2013-6

Suggesting governments should avoid user (even network security administrator) access to mass classified databases.

Downloading should be made laborious (even to respond to political requests) and some downloading patterns should trigger red flags...

The Sydney Morning Herald article "Snowden leaks may embarrass Canberra" of June 26, 2013 is unusually revealing about the damage Snowden is doing to America's allies, so far mainly the UK.

Unlike the US Australia has very limited power to drive international political and media debates for damage control. Hence http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/snowden-leaks-may-embarrass-canberra-20130625-2ov4l.html#ixzz2XIIyDcSC :

"Defence intelligence officials speaking on condition of anonymity have acknowledged there had been "intense exchanges" on Mr Snowden's disclosures through liaison channels between the US National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency and Australia’s intelligence agencies.

..."The US may be able to brush aside some of the diplomatic fallout from the Snowden leak, but that may not be the case for Australia. China, Malaysia, other countries may respond to us in ways that they would not to Washington."

While doing nothing for the American people and its allies Snowden is proving a great asset to China and now Russia. But can he tolerate Putin's freedoms?