proecting yourself is empowering

This is a list of resources to help secure yourself, the level of computer related skill/knowledge/patience varies for each resource, there might be a better list somewhere but I'm not sure. Surveillance around the world is pervasive, Canada is neck-deep in it. This list is meant to be empowering, to demonstrate that you can protect yourself from your government and governments around the world. All of the *software* listed here is free and are open source (that is to say, the source code is available for anyone to read).
Please remember that nothing here can make you 100% secure, this tools are made and used by people; people are not perfect, they can just make you more secure, keep this in mind when dealing with sensitive data.
This items listed go (roughly) from easiest to do to most difficult/time intensive, I recommend at least knowing about all of the tools that you can empower yourself with, even if you don't want to implement all of them
https://ssd.eff.org/en/playlist/activist-or-protester -- a guide on protecting yourself from surveillance, read this first, it will cover a lot of the below and then you can decide what to look into further.
https://xkcd.com/936/ - this comic illustrates good password creation, a lot of these security suggestions will be of no value if you don't create good passwords
https://duckduckgo.com/ - search engine that does not track you
https://www.google.com/landing/2step/ - explanation of two step authentication for gmail, there is a wide variety of other services that allow for this,including tumblr, facebook and twitter, listed here: (http://evanhahn.com/2fa/)
https://www.keepassx.org/ -- a program for windows mac and linux that allows you to automatically generate passwords/store them in an encrypted database, you will have an option to either create a key without a passphrase or vice-versa, make sure to do both.
http://www.labnol.org/software/remove-photograph-metadata/19588/ - theres lot of data in the files of photos you take, you can remove it
http://fixtracking.com/ - a guide to prevent/reduce tracking online, produced by duckduckgo
https://chatsecure.org/ -secure chat for android and iphone
https://www.linphone.org/ - secure and open source video and voice chat
https://whispersystems.org/ -textsecure and redphone; free, secure text messaging and calling for android
https://otr.cypherpunks.ca/ - off the record messaging, this lets you use a variety of instant messaging services in a secure manner, read the documentation here: https://otr.cypherpunks.ca/index.php#docs
http://docs.blackberry.com/en/smartphone_users/deliverables/11298/Encryption_34117_11.jsp - I couldn't find much on securing Blackberry phones, this guide is for a specific model of blackberry but it may be similar to other phones.
http://www.howtogeek.com/195124/how-to-easily-encrypt-files-on-windows-linux-and-mac-os-x/  - learn to encrypt your files on windows, mac and linux, read and carefully consider what is written about TrueCrypt if you are using windows, I recommend full disk encryption in any case, back up your files before encrypting your hard drive in case something happens, don't forget to delete the back up once you are comfortable with encryption tools.
https://enigmail.net/home/index - learn how to encrypt your email. read the guide entirely. Make sure you create a revocation certificate, don't confuse your public and private keys, read. the. guide. entirely.
remember that email metadata like subject, header information, sender, recipient, etc is not protected by encryption, ONLY content is protected.
https://www.torproject.org/ - anonymous browsing, please know what you are doing before using this resource.
http://edge-cache.gawker.com/lifehacker/Getting-Started-with-Linux-HQ.pdf Linux is more secure than Windows, it can be used alongside Windows, it is free, this is an intro guide. BACK UP YOUR FILES before trying it. I would recommend using Linux Mint for a good intro.
https://tails.boum.org/ - anonymous operating system that boots from usb, cd, etc make sure you know what you're doing here MAKE SURE YOU VERIFY THE SHA256 CHECKSUM, DO NOT USE if it is not verified, it confirms that the file was not modified in transit/while being downloaded, etc.
There are probably things I've missed, its a lot to learn but it feels good to feel and be more secure.