Some of that is necessary for the application to properly function*. No need to panic, just avoid generic apps if you're particularly worried, and stick with well known top-branded products, like Facebook. I highly doubt that Facebook will risk a bazillion lawsuits because they decided to spy on Joe Bloggs' phone call, and if they had, it would likely be littered all over the place. What you are right to be concerned about, are the generic and sometimes blatantly suspicious apps that litter themselves over the various markets.

* Such as uploading pictures to Facebook via the camera, including audio for videos, and other features. The phone lets you know what the application could do, but not what it will do, this is possibly not just for security purposes but as a sort of preliminary law-related warning.

Even given all that, though, I do wish there were more security options on phones, especially with all the stuff going about. With a PC, it's as simple as disabling a port, a hardware device, blocking a function, or various other methods, but on a phone.. IDK.. for me, I sometimes feel kind of restricted, even with Android's generous selection of options.

The main thing that concerns me, is location related stuff, which genuinely creeps me out, and is why I disable all GPS related shizz, ASAP; I hardly ever use it.