Non-PRISM Search Alternatives?

As I said, no matter what browsers, clients or websites he/she uses, they'll all still be tracked in one way or another. For example, even if my suggested SE is used, it still saves as a visited link (e.g. if he/she searched for cookies, it would be visible as https://duckduckgo.com?q=cookies, and instantly understandable what he was looking for.)

I sometimes wonder how many people were actually framed into crimes since the dawn of digital society by various government agencies worldwide. Because it's so easy (and cheap) to do so when you know where someone has been and what he was doing all the time, that I would be greatly suprised if no one did that.

That's a long read, but I'll look it over, thanks. However, if we stay realistic, there are billions of internet users, more than half a billion of which are in the EU or North America. A person has to act pretty damn suspicious to be tracked by a government organisation and for them to try and put together pieces as to how one might be a potential threat.

No need to exaggerate to such an extent. It's not like the government is putting up cameras in your bathroom, they're just keeping a track of what you look at online. This makes it incredibly easy for them to spot dumbasses that use Google / Bing to learn black hat hacking or even making DIY explosives.

If what they say is correct, then PRISM (an American organisation, afaik) is only keeping track of what 'foreigners' do on websites of companies that originate in the US. Now this is a bit strange, I agree, they should keep track of what residents of their own country are up to and leave it up to the governments of other countries to decide whether or not to compromise the online privacy of its residents.

If you look closely I also suggested that, as a first post. You're welcome.

Agreed.

the bottom line is: you'll never know for sure, who listens to what, let it be your queries or else. just try and get used to it and hope that you don't become a person of interest, so that way they'll probably leave your stuff alone

Yes, it is almost as if they don't believe the internet is almost single handedly controlled by the U.S. government, meaning they can simply use a different search provider to bypass the NSA - but unfortunately ICANN has to get permission from the U.S. govt. to make changes to the root zone file... Other countries, especially France, don't like that the U.S. holds so much power over the internet, but whatcha gonna do...? Also, the NSA, CIA, and others have been involved in wiretapping U.S. citizens since before the the internet became a public use tool, the Patriot Act (pre-Obama) only expanded on the "legal" powers they already had and were already executing and continue to execute - without a court order in quite a few cases. In other words, it was a salve for a panicked Congress and easily duped U.S. citizens following 9/11...

My best defense is multifold. One of those things is to notify my reps of my displeasure, which has been done. The other is to do something to note my displeasure with willing participants in a program I'm aware of, which is what I'm trying to do now.

The reason we know about it, FWIW, is two-fold. It's because of some whistleblowers, and because of the freedom of press, of which I am a former member and still intimately involved to the working of.

I do appreciate your direction, as it's good for everyone to know. However, I do actually have a personal plan here, contrary to folks here who appear to revel in my apparent ignorance.

And finally, we do have partisan news media, but it isn't hard to find non-partisan news media, either. And THAT is we the people being lazy about our news sources. It's very easy to blame the media, but it's also lazy and a cop out.

That's not true. It's about making a point. I think that the NSA and PRISM crossed a line there. They're invading my privacy without my knowledge and consent. I have nothing to hide from the american government, hell I would even give them access to all my stuff IF THEY ASKED me. But doing everything in secret without letting anyone know what you're up to, makes me think that america has something to hide.

For example if someone takes your pen without asking you get mad, but if they would have asked you for it then you would have given them the pen out of free will. It's about "having no control" over the situation. Currently the americans can gather as much information about you as they want and do with that information what they want.
So for example they see you visiting a lot of anti-government websites and the conclusion is that you ARE Anti-Government. But what they didn't know was that you just wanted to see for yourself why people are against the government, even if you're pro-government. The data they collect will be interpreted as THEY WISH without asking for your opinion.

lol.

"Computer security specialists have been aware for two years that unusual features are contained inside a standard Windows software "driver" used for security and encryption functions. The driver, called ADVAPI.DLL, enables and controls a range of security functions. If you use Windows, you will find it in the C:\Windows\system directory of your computer."