Slow down? Maybe. Stop or divert? Fat chance.
Phone calls and text messages, yes, you’re at the whim of your provider, and most of them will willing give into government requests.
They don't even have to "give in" anymore. The feds are tapped into the computers/networks of telecommunications companies with their support.
This is a digitally-fingerprinted encryption module that is as unique as a fingerprint and specific to your computer’s configuration and utilizes a hash that is so complex as to be impossible to crack without utilizing quantum computing technology not yet available.
The NSA Is Building the Country’s Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say)
From the above link --
"But “this is more than just a data center,” says one senior intelligence official who until recently was involved with the program. The mammoth Bluffdale center will have another important and far more secret role that until now has gone unrevealed. It is also critical, he says, for breaking codes. And code-breaking is crucial, because much of the data that the center will handle—financial information, stock transactions, business deals, foreign military and diplomatic secrets, legal documents, confidential personal communications—will be heavily encrypted. According to another top official also involved with the program, the NSA made an enormous breakthrough several years ago in its ability to cryptanalyze, or break, unfathomably complex encryption systems employed by not only governments around the world but also many average computer users in the US."
With that TPM, you can then encrypt your hard drives or at least portions of them. I create a few encrypted “shards” on my main disks. On those shards, I keep valuable information about my identity, bank accounts, investment information, and most importantly: my browser cache.
What is the use in encrypting your private info on your own computer when the feds can and do just get it directly from the banks, etc?
I use Firefox, and you can set it up where your profile (e.g. browser cache) is stored on this encrypted shard. It contains every last thing about where you’ve been, what you’ve downloaded, history, bookmarks, everything. Without it being loaded, Firefox won’t even start. Without the multi-factor password and certificate hash, no one can get into it. They can arrest me and torture me until I’m dead, but only I can give them access with the information in my brain.
They can get that info from Google, etc, correct?
Invest in a digital certificate, invest in a TPM, download a password locker, and keep an encrypted thumbdrive handy for secure data. Lock that in a safe or a bank safe deposit box, and you’ll be as secure as you possibly can be without doing as you suggest and live in a cave.
I didn't suggest living in a cave. That said, none of your planning accounts for getting the same info via third parties through a variety of (currently) legal ways or account for such things as electronic commerce.
In other words, if they want it, they'll get it. And they want it.
For investigations, sure, they’ll persist, but for day-to-day monitoring of citizens, they’re not going to commit resources to decrypting your data. The Bluffdale data array cannot encrypt everything at a moment’s notice. In many cases it takes several days if not weeks to decrypt anything hashed over 1024 bits. If they have the decryption hash or the SHA fingerprint, they can crack it in seconds, but that information is not public. Companies like Entrust, QuoVadis, RSA, Sonera, Thawte, and VeriSign would go out of business overnight if it was discovered that they were validating trust relationships across the globe. I’ve worked with numerous security professionals, and I can assure you that they are NOT working with the government to make it easier for them. Trillions of dollars of wealth are on the line!
Encrypting private data on your own computer is the biggest step you can take to prevent identity theft, for one. Having been the victim of fraud, I can tell you that there’s nothing worse than finding out you’ve been hacked or your identity has been stolen. Without spending inordinate amounts of money on personal VPN encryption devices, I’m doing everything I can now to protect myself.
Also, let me remind you that in a court of law, the records from an ISP or phone company are no where near as valuable as the records from a persons computer or phone, respectively. It’s very easy to hack someone’s ESN and assign it to a stolen phone, thus making it look like you’re the one calling Bangladesh on a regular basis. Likewise, unprotected wireless networks can mean trouble for an innocent person if they’re hacked or otherwise compromised and used for illegal activity. If the police and prosecutors can get BOTH the records from your ISP/phone company AND the devices from where the communications originated, they’ve got an airtight case against you. Otherwise, with just one, a competent lawyer could easily argue hearsay or that your personal accounts were compromised and have a case against you thrown out.
One thing you brought up that I’m thankful you mentioned is Google, et al. One big piece of advice I can give you: DO NOT USE A PUBLIC (FREE) EMAIL ACCOUNT! You are just begging to lose your identity or freedom. If you have the wherewithal to research it, buy yourself a cheap desktop computer, setup your own domain name, and configure a simple SMTP relay for your own email. If it’s encrypted by certificate and/or multi-factor authentication, it would be impossible for anyone to say what was transmitted. At best, use your ISP’s free email, which you’re technically paying for.
Why? MOST ISPs would be reluctant to hand over data traffic and audit logs. They know that if it got out that they were helping the feds with an investigation, and the PR disaster that ensued would ensure they lost customers.
I’ve worked for a major ISP in the southeast, and I can tell you with 100% assurance that your email information is more secure than public emails like Google and Yahoo. We often responded to subpoenas, but the data they requested never went so far as to provide actual copies of emails; and furthermore, we had a 25-day retention policy to save money. Storage was NOT cheap and for an ISP, they’d rather spend their capital on infrastructure upgrades than storage of your emails to old aunt Bess.
In summary... if the government is bound and determined to get your communications data, yes, they can get it. However, the amount of practical computing power at their disposal is STILL finite.
They’re not going to be decrypting every last datagram that comes across the networks of the world, and unless you’re being specifically targeted for some reason, you’re not going to be at risk of intercept of your personal data. It’s a simple numbers game AND it’s a matter of diminishing value of return. Aunt Bess’ apple pie recipe is not as important as Chinese launch codes.
The root certification authorities of the world are not giving up their encryption algorithms for the NSA, and even if the NSA manages to decipher those encryption algorithms, the next generation of encryption is going to be more complex by a factor of 3.