More than five years ago, there was an expose about a new secret datacenter the NSA had built that was top-of-the-line everything. It opened for operations, and was immediately over capacity. The simple fact is that the Three Letter Agencies and their ilk are collecting more data than they can ever hope to process. Existing tools, and tools that are projected to exist 10 years out, are completely inadequate to analyze the data they have already. This data is useless for "discovery". However, if you get pulled over with a kilo of cocaine in your trunk, you can bet someone is going to do some focused searches through all this data and see who you talk to, how often, where you talk to them (geo-location), and who they are linked to. And, in the end, the security cow has left the barn. There is nothing anyone can do about these data collections and data analysis proclivities. Because if the gummint tells 'em to shut down Project XYZ, they'll post a "for rent" sign on the door, pull the curtains, and move all that tech over to a black-budget project. So it doesn't matter, and you are utterly powerless against anything the government wants to do to you. However, you will always be a target for 4chan and that type of loser. And there's nothing you can do about that, either, because none of the companies you deal with electronically actually give a shit about the security of your data. If the bad guys want it, they will get it. Period. Embrace the anonymity of the crowd. Don't stick your head up, and nobody will ever notice you, or think to pull your data.
What does this do to the freedom of speech? Since the time of the civil rights era, have we more or less protection over our freedoms of speech and press? Are the voices and bodies of desenters protected in any meaningful way, or must we assure our own protection as the Westboro Bapist Church does with cameras and law degrees? However truly protected we are, how protected does the American public feel compared to the civil rights era?Embrace the anonymity of the crowd. Don't stick your head up, and nobody will ever notice you, or think to pull your data.