> If I was an intelligent person, I would use a basic phone for making phone calls and not carry surveillance devices on my person or have them in my house. This way I would not have to worry about keeping up with agencies that operate above the law...

Why do you assume a "basic phone" would protect you in any way? It's far more likely to only be capable of insecure, easily interceptable forms of communication (e.g. SMS). Also, it's software is likely much worse than more popular phones (e.g. an egregious example is cheap Android phones shipping with malware preinstalled).