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If possible, you should always connect to websites via SSL. Check out HTTPS Everywhere to make sure your traffic is encrypted whenever possible. This only protects the data that's being transmitted of course, so you should also connect to websites through a VPN for additional privacy. I use ProXPN, and it seems to work well. They have a free tier (that is slowed down quite a bit), but should server basic browsing purposes, or for testing to see how it works.

Of course, neither of these things will help at all if the NSA has access to the website's databases, and there isn't much you can do to stay hidden in that case. Avoid using personal identifying information if at all possible, and avoid logging into websites with Facebook/Google accounts.

It's true that they can try and force companies to hand over their private keys to decrypt the SSL traffic, but they would have to get them from every site that has one. So it's certainly a better choice to use SSL than unencrypted traffic, even if they are able to decrypt a few things.