I really don't care if the NSA is spying on me. I should, but I don't do anything illegal. I just don't have that 'rebel' sort of personality. I should care.... I used to care... but I don't. They would just get bored. I'm willing to trade some freedom for extra security and truly believe the NSA is really just trying to keep arab terrorists and other undesirables at bay... why there are even arab terrorists threatening us and our foreign policy decisions is a subject of another discussion entirely. They are not going to care about blue collar joe schmo going smoking pot or speeding or something like that. They don't have time for that. Only local law enforcement cares about that...and you have to get caught doing that even. Does the NSA care that people have bitcoins? Perhaps, since bitcoin does attract people who participate in illegal activities. Just your average altcoin trader not reporting his capital gains? I suppose if you get good enough at it...
Why should I not use gmail? I'm more concerned with joe bitcoin hacker bypassing my 2 factor authentication than I am the NSA caring about what I'm doing. I look at google as a company positively.. they benefit society and for the most part offer innovation and higher levels of open source than for example Apple, spending money on projects that benefit people. I'd be more concerned about a phone rep giving away my password without the proper credentials or even with the proper credentials.. I doubt the NSA is looking to steal people's identities and run away with their money.. that's something criminals do... for the most part, I look at the system, look at what these agencies do, and I'm satisfied enough that I can trust my accounts to my gmail... with my 32 random character password and 2 factor authentication, shredder at home to try to not keep personal information laying around in case someone decides to rob the place, and online bill statements whenever possible to eliminate personal information via the snail mail... these are the precautions I take.
If you need more security, more power to you. Make sure you use it!
TLDR: In the end, I'd be more worried about random joe criminal stealing your identity than the NSA, since you can do quite a bit with a social security number and naive phone reps, but for all I know, some of you reading this are the ones doing the identity stealing...
