I'm serious. Don't people read those documents Snowden leaked? There is alternative to Prism called Upstream, that collects and intercepts data directly from communications.
The only difference between downloading daily your data to your laptop and deleting it from Google is that they stay in Google servers up to 30 days after deletion. In both cases NSA can read your emails. Either using PRISM or Upstream.
1. Have Gmail account.
2. Use disc encryption in your desktop/laptop.
3. Have your own email client.
4. Use IMAP to download mail from your Gmail acocunt and to delete mails in Gmail.
NSA can still snoops your email like it does when you use your own server, but you don't keep the archive of your emails accessible to them.