They’re also dreaming if they think doing these things doesn’t just make them stand out, and provides them any real protection from state actors.

The number one rule of tradecraft is to blend in. I promise that you haven’t thought of some way of using an always connected smartphone that the NSA hasn’t considered. They are probably the ones making your degoogled ROMs.

This is hubris, plain and simple. If your goal is to hide from state actors then the best way of doing that is to be uninteresting statistical noise.