If this is true

(and it appears that it is)

Then things like this make it important that you get a prepaid cell phone and pay cash for it now. Make sure that the batteries for that phone are removable. Activate it, make sure it works. Do so as far from your home and work area as possible. Take the batteries out of the phone.Don't get a smart phone, get a really simple dumb one (or two or three).

Have your friends do so as well. Do so now, so that any video records at the store are overwritten before you need to use them.

Exchange numbers (but write them down, don't program them into the phones) and keep the minutes paid up. NEVER call anything but another throwaway phone from your "burn phone". Ever.

Refresh them with cash (yearly if possible) as far away from your home as possible)

Take (and keep) the batteries out  of the phone.

Just in case.

You'll probably never need 'em, but what is $20 a month for secure, untraceable-to-you communication?

(You can be tracked, but not until you put the battery back into the phone).

Think of getting a "one time pad" setup....like paperback books, for coded texts. (google it if you don't know what I mean). Might come in handy.

You'll likely only be able to use those particular phones for a few days, if and when. Maybe a week or two at most. Set up a code word that you can text to people of like minds to alert them that you will be using your new phone and leaving your old one. Never use the new phone at your home. Never even close to you home. Never put the batteries in the new phone anywhere near your home or work. Once the new phone is powered up, there is a record of it's location and movement.

And remember this:
Never say anything on any phone that you don't want recorded and reviewed by the government. Never write anything on the internet or in an email that you don't want read by the government. Only communications face to face are (sort of) secure...And that is iffy if someone cares to pay attention to you and the people you meet with..

Yeah, I am paranoid.
I have reason to be.
Now you do too.

I only hope that the feds have bigger, badder people to look at, and I get lost in the clutter.

Via Wirecutter