A VPN might help to escape AT&T's surveillance, but if you really care about privacy you'd have to make sure it's free from other organizations' surveillance as

A VPN might help to escape AT&T's surveillance, but if you really care about privacy you'd have to make sure it's free from other organizations' surveillance as well, which is kind of hard (and perhaps impossible?). A VPN will only help to escape surveillance that is limited to some area, but other than that it provides no additional security.