I personally do not care about privacy. I see no reason why I should.
It's just my opinion. I know other people do but please don't generalize.
Assuming that you don't care about privacy because you're apathetic, do you also not care about free speech because you don't say anything controversial? Do you care about your right to assembly even if you don't protest anything? As an extreme example upon which to build a baseline, would you mind if a neighbor had unmitigated access to watching you lounge in your underwear, take a shower or have sex?
Why do you not care about privacy? Do you feel that you don't need it because you have nothing to hide, or are you willing to sacrifice it for some greater good (e.g. terrorism etc.)? Are you merely indifferent or do you aggressively oppose the concept?
1.) Free speech is a completely different topic. Snowden's quote on this page makes no sense to me no matter how often I re-read it. If free speech didn't exist I wouldn't be able to express my opinion about privacy :)
2.) Privacy means hiding the truth. Hiding what really happened. Hiding who you really are. I believe it is a flaw of the human personality that makes us want to hide information and eventually lie about it.
I don't care if Google or the government knows that I'm searching "[insert embarassing keywords for you here]" or if Facebook knows my location, or if Twitter knows what I like based on the people I follow.
Who is the government? It's people. People like you and me. If people decide to make assumptions based on data they collected and the assumptions aren't correct it's their own fault for assuming something in the first place (because...you know...it's an assumption...it can be wrong).
I am not aggressively opposing the concept of privacy. I respect other people's opinion.
Who said anything about lying being a part of a desire for privacy?
I don't care if Google or the government knows that I'm searching "[insert embarassing keywords for you here]
Would you care if a prospective insurer knows you're (hypothetically) searching for "atrial fibrillation management" or "opiate addiction"? Or a prospective employer who knows you're (hypothetically) searching for "corporate firewall security exploits"? Or a prospective romantic partner who knows you're (hypothetically) searching for "genital rash"? Any of those searches could be legitimately borne of pure, unadulterated curiosity, but taken out of that context by people with whom you're hoping to establish some kind of relationship, they could easily doom that relationship before it begins. Hell, those searches may not even be made by you but by someone in your household, but if decisions are made and opinions are formed based in that information, you've suffered an unnecessary loss.
Who is the government? It's people. People like you and me.
Indeed, people like you and me, except those people have the authority and/or power to incarcerate you, or impinge on your rights in other (less direct/more insidious) ways. Privacy isn't about hiding the truth from those who have a need to know it, it's about controlling the context of that truth, or at the very least, having a say in any response that comes from the truth being discovered.
Like you said, someone trying to get information about the topics you mentioned could simply be doing this out of curiosity. Now person A from the government says you are X. However you are not X, you are Y.
Think again, what is the actual problem? The actual problem is not the data which is 100% correct.
The actual problem is people's prejudices and assumptions. This is what we need to fix. If someone searches about topic Z we should think very carefully about the consequences of drawing an assumption.
However, this view is very ideological. Your view on the current state is more practical. I do not disagree with your statements, I simply wish that we can address the real issue here in the future. Even if it takes us centuries.
Like you, Snowden's freedom of speech line never impacted me... until I read this article. It suddenly hit me. The reason I was missing his point is because I was framing it in terms of what's in it for me rather than looking at it as what's in it for us. Someone who doesn't care about freedom of speech doesn't care because he doesn't see what's in it for him. But I doubt you'd argue the benefits of the first amendment.
Similarly, privacy is very important. You might not care (even though you really do), but defending privacy is about ensuring security. Privacy is important for all of us, just like freedom of speech is.
As for what the actual problem is, the problem for the most part is ignorance and a failure to quench it. We need more privacy / cyber-security advocates who can educate people on why they ought to care. It's like teaching people why it's important to lock their doors at night or why they should put their letters into envelopes instead of just using post cards. It's why my mom had to drill into my brain the importance of not giving out my social security number willy nilly. Are you so liberal with your SSN? You don't care about privacy, so would it bother you if Facebook or Google asked for it. After all, they just want to make sure you are who you say you are.
Things aren't obvious to us until they're obvious, and then it feels like common sense. DUH, lock your door! DUH, encrypt your messages!