If you think the NSA is surveilling you, they are. If you're concerned about that, I don't have much to say but use cash, avoid tech, and good luck.
If you don't want local people snooping your wi-fi transmissions, don't use wi-fi. Or at least use WPA2 and https. A VPN, secure proxy, or SSH tunnel would be a good thing. But unless you have a device with an editable wi-fi MAC address, don't use wi-fi. The MAC address is always plain text no matter what you do to secure your session data. So you can be tracked across time and space by your MAC address.
If you don't want your ISP snooping on you, use a VPN, secure proxy, or SSH tunnel (of course then you have to have some trust in the endpoint). You could use Tor, but that's slow. It's a trade-off between how involved you are willing for the precautions to be, and what ease you want in using modern technology. Make sure your DNS requests are routed through the proxy, or your ISP will still know what sites you visited, and when.
If you're concerned about the advertising-analytics-social ecosystem tracking you (who isn't?), there are a lot of things you need to do. Keep your browsers clean of cookies (of all kinds: http://samy.pl/evercookie), cache, and history. Change your IP address frequently. Use Tor as much as practical. Use multiple browsers over multiple VPNs, secure proxies, and/or SSH tunnels. Keep browser configs as standard as possible with respect to things that can be detected by a remote web site (Flash, Silverlight, Java, internet plug-ins, fonts, etc). Use multiple physical or Virtual Machines to diversify your accesses. Keep each physical or VM as standard as possible to reduce the bits of entropy that its device fingerprint betrays (https://panopticlick.eff.org/). Browsing on an iPhone is better than browsing on a desktop with unique add-ons, for example.
Actively block tracking servers and domains with your hosts file, DNS service, browser add-ons, etc.
Yes, we need a good law to make privacy rights fundamental, protected, and with enforcement teeth. But we also know there will always be bad actors who will ignore or work around the law. Bottom line? Do more to protect yourself than you think you need to, then do some more. Defense in depth. Diversification across services, accounts, connections, browsers, machines, etc. And always practice good security, even if you're in a situation where you don't think you have to.
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If you think the NSA is surveilling you, they are. If you're concerned about that, I don't have much to say but use cash, avoid tech, and good luck. If you don't want local people snooping your wi-fi transmissions, don't use wi-fi. Or at least use WPA2 and https. A VPN, secure proxy, or SSH tunnel would be a good thing. But unless you have a device with an editable wi-fi MAC address, don't use wi-fi. The MAC address is always plain text no matter what you do to secure your session data. So you can be tracked across time and space by your MAC address. If you don't want your ISP snooping on you, use a VPN, secure proxy, or SSH tunnel (of course then you have to have some trust in the endpoint). You could use Tor, but that's slow. It's a trade-off between how involved you are willing for the precautions to be, and what ease you want in using modern technology. Make sure your DNS requests are routed through the proxy, or your ISP will still know what sites you visited, and when. If you're concerned about the advertising-analytics-social ecosystem tracking you (who isn't?), there are a lot of things you need to do. Keep your browsers clean of cookies (of all kinds: http://samy.pl/evercookie), cache, and history. Change your IP address frequently. Use Tor as much as practical. Use multiple browsers over multiple VPNs, secure proxies, and/or SSH tunnels. Keep browser configs as standard as possible with respect to things that can be detected by a remote web site (Flash, Silverlight, Java, internet plug-ins, fonts, etc). Use multiple physical or Virtual Machines to diversify your accesses. Keep each physical or VM as standard as possible to reduce the bits of entropy that its device fingerprint betrays (https://panopticlick.eff.org/). Browsing on an iPhone is better than browsing on a desktop with unique add-ons, for example. Actively block tracking servers and domains with your hosts file, DNS service, browser add-ons, etc. Yes, we need a good law to make privacy rights fundamental, protected, and with enforcement teeth. But we also know there will always be bad actors who will ignore or work around the law. Bottom line? Do more to protect yourself than you think you need to, then do some more. Defense in depth. Diversification across services, accounts, connections, browsers, machines, etc. And always practice good security, even if you're in a situation where you don't think you have to.