I think Donald Kerr is correct on the first bit, and naive on the latter:

“Privacy no longer can mean anonymity. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguards people’s private communications and financial information.”

Anonymity has always been a tool for ill means. But, the government is hardly capable of safeguarding people’s communications, and big companies will hide behind their terms of service (and their lobbying efforts). In other words, there are zero remedies for the little guy.

Everyone loses, but I’d say those hardest hit will be the ones who entrust their data to online services; that data doesn’t need to be actively “intercepted” - instead it’s just mined at will. The winners might be companies like PGP, as well as anyone manufacturing large, portable data storage devices.

UPDATE: Tim Lee’s take.

The folks I know in the education space, including some teachers, a few policy makers, and the higher-ups at a couple of for-profit institutions, have pissed and moaned about the Bush Administration’s No Child Left Behind program. I’ve heard funding is the big issue, but I can’t opine on the matter myself, as education just isn’t my “business.” But I see a covert signs that NCLB is actually working.

The Administration has been intercepting phone calls of people they say are terrorist-related. The National Security Agency has been doing the dirty work. Meanwhile, the NSA has also developed a program to identify the next generation of high-end surveillance personal - the codename….CryptoKids.

Maybe that’s where all the funding for education is going.