Peer block is a good place to start. Because I've been involved in a lot of online black market stuff, privacy has been a concern of mine for many years now, plus I use a lot of 'pirated' (aka using your own property as you see fit) media from the web.
Nothing is sure with electronic communications and there is always a risk of interception. But peerblock is a pretty good, and fairly lightweight piece of totally free software that will at least greatly increase your own security until something better comes along.
You can bet with the expansion of warrantless tapping power over here in the US as well that free minded hackers and developers will begin evolving software as a response and that software will be free. Keep an eye on free minded tech sites like technorati and wired.com, they are very concerned about the recent loss of privacy on the web and the other bills being constructed and will cover new software releases. I'll continue to look for better privacy freeware as well since my online activities actually require it, will post whenever I find something.
