It's becoming nearly impossible for Americans to wake up from their sleep and be ensured they are not being watched or listened to by Big Brother.

Rajiv Shah, a professor at the University of Chicago, told the Wall Street Journal that his city has at least 15,000 cameras watching the people's every move. Hundreds of police departments now use ALPR (automatic license plate recognition) technology to plot where people drive every single day. Television sets are even used as spy tools now. In fact, the terms of service for Samsung Smart TVs advise you that your voice can and will be transmitted to third parties.

If government wants to spy on you, it will. But you can minimize the effectiveness of their snooping with a few modern tools.

Counter Surveillance

You've seen it in the movies: People find "bugs" in their cars, homes, offices and anywhere else nosy individuals feel they can capture sensitive information. These devices are small, silent and nearly impossible to find without the right tools.

Counter surveillance is exactly what it sounds like. Camera detectors, for instance, cause lenses as small as a pin tip to reflect light, so you can see and eliminate them. Bug detectors alert you of radio frequencies (RF) in the vicinity. Of course, these devices can create false positives, since many non-spy devices (i.e., smartphones) emit RF signals. Jammers mask audio such as your voice during conversation. These devices thus render wiretapping and other audio snooping ineffective.

You can spend upward of $3,000 on government-grade speech protection systems. But for those living off-grid or far from neighbors and other buildings, you can get an all-in-one bug, RF and lens detector for under $100. More expensive ones are needed for urban dwellers due to sensitivity in detecting benign signals from other people's devices.

Range Finders

Binoculars are a universal tool for monitoring your home and seeing things at a distance. But whether you're trying to take down a bear with a single shot or determine the distance away of an unfamiliar vehicle, you'll need a rangefinder to do it.

Used frequently by hunters and golfers, rangefinders bounce lasers off objects in the distance and measure the time it takes to get back. Since the laser travels at light speed, the device can then calculate the distance the object is from you. The technology of today is far more accurate and fast than the crude optics used in rangefinders before lasers were incorporated into them.

There are a number of rangefinders on the market today. But even the least expensive laser rangefinders (between $150-$200) are accurate up to 600 yards. Binoculars also have rangefinders built right into them, but these are typically very expensive.

Sound Amplifiers

The best way to prepare for the inevitable is to hear it before it gets there and/or springs into action. Sound amplifiers increase the volume of distant or quiet nearby noises. A cheap $50 unit allows you to potentially hear a cricket jump from one blade of grass to the next outside your house. Those with a little more to spend have the option of "smart" hearing devices that zero in on voices and cut out background noise in the process.

Liberty and privacy can no longer be taken for granted in today's NSA/Patriot Act world. A little due diligence goes a long way in protecting the freedoms we cherish as Americans.