Popular videos circulating on You Tube show the discovery of a spy camera and a microphone hidden inside a digital TV converter box.  Such devices are part of a government and industry surveillance program that is undoubtedly connected to the forced digital TV switchover being rolled out in the UK and US.  “I could not believe my eyes,” states the blurb accompanying the video clip, “I have a friend who is kind of a conspiracy theorist. He was trying to convince me that many of the digital TV convert boxes that are coming out have microphones and cameras built into them. Knowing a bit about electronics I bought one of these devices opened it up fully intending on proving him wrong. To my surprise he was right. This device has both a miniature camera lens and what looks like a microphone. I was so shocked I took pictures and video. Please send this out to everyone you know who is using one of these devices.”

The camera and microphone were hidden inside a MAGNAVOX TB110MW9 Digital to Analog Converter box. We are not suggesting that every digital cable box has a spy camera and microphone inside, so ripping open your cable box is not a good way to prove this one way or another – but the fact remains that companies like Google and Comcast have openly announced that they plan to use hidden cameras and microphones inside their products to spy on consumers.

The need to mandate a mass roll out of such hidden surveillance devices is undoubtedly one of the reasons that governments in both the UK and the US, as well as eventually the entire planet, are overseeing a forced switchover to digital TV and killing traditional analogue broadcasts. The vast majority of TV’s require a digital decoder box to receive digital TV transmissions.

By installing covert spy devices and hidden microphones inside our all but mandatory digital boxes, the government and whatever corporate entities get a slice of the pie, have direct access to our living rooms. This is the ultimate Big Brother scenario whereby the majority of Americans and Europeans will have Orwellian telescreens watching their every move.

Many will dismiss such claims as conspiracy fodder, but the fact is that Americans have been spied on for decades, previously under the Echelon program and more recently as part of the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program.  As former National Security Agency analyst Russell Tice recently revealed, “The National Security Agency had access to all Americans’ communications — faxes, phone calls, and their computer communications,” Tice claimed. “It didn’t matter whether you were in Kansas, in the middle of the country, and you never made foreign communications at all. They monitored all communications.”

As we highlighted three years ago, private industry and eventually government is planning to use microphones in the computers of an estimated 150 million-plus Internet active Americans, as well as similar devices installed inside digital TV boxes, to spy on their lifestyle choices and build psychological profiles which will be used for surveillance and minority report style invasive advertising and data mining.

Digital cable TV boxes, such as Scientific Atlanta, have had secret in-built microphones inside them since their inception in the late 1990’s and these originally dormant devices were planned to be activated when the invasive advertising revolution was being rolled out, a watershed that is quickly becoming a reality.

The advent of digital video recording devices such as TiVo (Sky Plus in the UK) introduced the creation of psychological algorithm profiles – databases on what programs you watched, how long you watched them for, and which adverts you liked or didn’t like. This information was retained by TiVo and sold to the highest bidders – an example being Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction during the 2003 Super Bowl half-time show; TiVo were able to compile lists of how many people had rewound the clip and how many times they had replayed it.

In 2006, Google announced that they would use in-built computer microphones to listen in on user’s background noise, be it television, music or radio – and then direct advertising at them based on their preferences.  In March (2008) last year, Comcast announced that they were “experimenting with different camera technologies built into devices so it can know who’s in your living room.”  The cameras would use body-form recognition to confirm who was in the room and then tailor program recommendations, as well as commercials, to target that member of the family.

A video at the original article by Paul Joseph Watson – Propaganda Matrix – Wednesday, February 18, 2009 found at Hidden Spy Camera & Mic Found Inside Digital TV Box covers the issue of secret cameras installed inside digital TV boxes and their relation to the forced digital switchover. A further video explores other motives behind the digital switchover. ### end of article

After I posted this, I learned it was a hoax and here are those links:

HOAX: Cameras in Digital Converter Boxes
Hidden Cameras in DTV Converters? YouTube Hoax Fans Conspiracy Fears

My thoughts on this? While I enjoy my privacy and don’t relish the idea of anyone using body-form recognition to keep track of me in front of my tv or anywhere else, I figure it is what it is and I don’t care.  I don’t have anything to hide.  I don’t do anything that anyone would be particularly interested in, or find compelling or illegal or covert.

On the other hand, it might be a good idea to know that if Mr. Good Ole Boy around the corner is a weirdo and has a houseful of guns and drugs and is plotting something dangerous, illegal and no good, that law enforcement can tap into his home and watch what he’s up to, and know from his records who he communicates with about what and how often.  And use that info to foil his little plan and keep us safe.

Yeah, yeah, I know there we get into the whole Constitutional expectation of privacy thang.  The bottom line, as I see it is this:  I live my life so that I don’t need to be looking over my shoulder waiting for some axe to fall or some past karma to catch up with me.  I’m no goody two shoes, but I make mindful decisions keeping consequences in mind.  I figure if I’m just going about my business, not bothering anyone, I’m just not going to attract any kind of situations that anyone wants to spy on.  And if I do, I’m not doing anything anyone would be interested in, so who cares?  Really?  Privacy is so last millenium anyway.

Andrea

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