I've come to think of it in economic terms. Some incredibly valuable companies -- Google and Facebook come to mind -- are built around nothing more than the economics of your personal information and mine. Seemingly innocuous information has proven to have great commercial value, and that's also why the government is so interested in accumulating it. If your preferences, vital statistics, purchases, and opinions were valueless, Google and Facebook wouldn't want to know anything about them, and neither would Uncle Sam.