Now I'm starting to think that the whole NSA spying thing, and government spying in general, is a direct result of the lack of physical control of the populace. In principal, people in the free countries can think what they want, but only if the government knows what people are thinking at all times. I guess monitoring everyone's thoughts like as if we were all prisoners on parole is a direct consequence of physical freedom. If people are granted the freedom to _do_ what they like, they must give up the right to _think_ what they like, or at least they give up the right to share their thoughts privately with others.
There's definitely a balance that needs to be maintained here. Privacy and freedom of speech are almost opposites of each other...
The right of Freedom of Speech demands that we publicly air our grivances and are protected when we do so. We have to exercise this right from time to time just to make sure that it isn't forgotten.
The right to Privacy means that we are allowed to keep certain parts of our lives private and that the law protects this.
We have mostly gone towards Freedom of Speech over Privacy.
Consider a court case: an examining lawyer is allowed to ask you ANYTHING and unless it is very unrelated to the case at hand, you have to answer truthfully or face a purgery charge. No privacy there...
So what I am trying to say is: Worrying about the government monitoring your thoughts is probably not such a big problem unless they are used to imprison you.
I'd worry more about requirements to keep my thoughts private....