I'm at work right now, so I'll try to come back later and expand on my answer a bit, but I'll write out a few of my thoughts on this.

This is something I've been considering a lot lately. Social news sites like Reddit and Hacker News make me think I should absolutely be hoarding my information and encrypting email, etc. etc. And there are posts on Hubski that paint things in the same light. But is it really that bad to be using Google's products? Or to be on Facebook? What's the point in hiding my information if I don't have anything to hide? (Don't get me wrong: I love using and supporting [and sometimes contributing to] open source alternatives to Google's and other's products, but in many cases where Google's is the best, why bother?)

The answer to these questions - for me - is: I'm going to say some things differently - or sometimes not at all - if I think my words may be being listened to or being monitored for certain words/phrases/etc. I would change my behavior in the same way if the government were looking through the window at my apartment - except, in that case, it would be much more obvious that I were being watched. I have a feeling that people are probably a lot more accepting of the widespread surveillance we now know about because they can't actually see the NSA/whoever watching them.

The other phenomenon that I see as relevant is the idea that by putting a lobster in non-boiling water and slowly heating it up, the lobster won't try to escape; whereas, if you put a lobster straight into boiling water, it'll jerk away and try not to go into the water. (I botched that analogy, but you see where I'm going.) By slowly infringing on our privacy, the public has slowly come to accept the surveillance as just a part of living in the US. It's not seen as something we can do anything about.

To summerize: I'll say and do different things if I'm being watched/monitored/listened to, whether digitally or not. By effectively 'controlling' what people are saying by scaring them into not saying 'unpatriotic' things, it makes it harder for people to organize and conquer corruption in government, and all the forms that that takes, etc.