Great article in the Boston Globe today by Hiawatha Bray on the subject of RFID tags called, "You Need not be Paranoid to Fear RFID."
It is clear that we should have no expectation of privacy as we move into the future. I wrote a paper in college on this subject in the '70s. My conclusion then is the same as it is today... there will be no privacy, so therefore everyone must have access to all information for society to work. At the time, I envisioned pay terminals (much like pay telephones) in public areas for people to use to access databases... but, as it turns out, we have realtively ubiquitous access to the network today, so at least that won't be necessary. But in order to provide checks and balances against abuse of this data by large corporations and the government, we must make it available to all so that everyone can by spied on by everyone. Not because this is a good thing, but because being spied on is inevitable.
If the spy knows that she can be exposed, she is less likely to expose others. Awful situation for a society to be in, but here we are.
