Go old school and use a tape, it should work just as well.

How do you deal with the microphone?

Take a needle and punch it

I can't tell if it's a serious comment or not but in case it's serious: Why even buy a laptop? If you're paranoid enough to want to do this sort of thing to something you're paying over $1.5k for, have you realized the consequences of what other things a bad agent can do?

Your data, your files are more valuable to the NSA than your microphone. If they care about what you're saying, your house is already bugged.

What if you need it one day? You can remove tape from the web cam, but a needle is quite permanent.

I would think that the microphone is connected to the motherboard with a plug of some sort. So just open it up and disconnect that.

External mic I guess.

I think the least of my concerns would be the camera - at least if they are doing that, they might trigger some data usage that I could catch on my modem/little-snitch, etc....

If they are able to access the, then odds are they can access things like my keyboard, 1password passwords, banking, etc...

In BIOS, the camera and microphones can be fully disabled.

Specifically to this model?

No, it's been a long-standing option in the XPS BIOS. Here's a photo of the option on my 9343.

http://i.imgur.com/62jcJpB.jpg

That's why I asked because I have a Dell Inspiron and I don't have that option sadly.

Thank you for the picture!