scuwp: I am in the camp that I am willing to lose a bit of privacy for the sake of security. If they want to listen to my boring family conversations, go for it.

Hell, no.  This is (in my opinion) a foolish and dangerous position to take.

It implies a complete trust in government and governmental organisations.  Would you trust 100% of police officers and politicians?  You might be able to trust 95% of them, or 98% of them, but 100%?  And if you can trust 98% of the, can you trust those 98% to have good oversight of the other 2%?  History is littered with examples of state abuse of power that is covered up and exposed later on (and sometimes even apologies for years down the track).

I should not have to justify my private affairs being private to anybody, including any government.

If there is a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity, there are established procedures for gaining warrants for surveillance against specific named people to gather further evidence of their wrongdoing.  That is sufficient.