Not disagreeing with you- but I'm always amazed at how shocked people are too discover that their standard cable boxes have had microphones in them since ~ the early 90's, with the capability to send recordings back over the cable lines. Not retroactive (that we know of), but still.

And that the FBI and police have actually used them (with warrants) to get criminal convictions. Publicly available court transcripts confirm this.

That's the legal use. Who knows how the NSA has actually been using those in situ capabilities.

Do you have a reliable reference about cable boxes having microphones in them?

The only thing I could find about this was a claim that it was a hoax: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/camera-obscura

Exactly, this is an important distinction. Self-censorship in the most intimate private sphere means one's freedom of expression is fundamentally limited in a severe way.

> There is a very big difference between what I may say over the phone and what I might say in my home. When on the phone everything I say is with the knowledge that someone (the receiver) is listening. In my home I make no such assumptions.

Assumptions, maybe no. But i think people need to be better educated on when those assumptions are false. We put recording devices in our homes and are shocked when those recording devices turn out to be recording.

Ideally, the devices should be legally required to give you strong indicators to when it actually is recording. Be it your phone, speakers, w/e. But still - we've got recording devices all around us. If we don't acknowledge that then privacy is just for show.

>When on the phone everything I say is with the knowledge that someone (the receiver) is listening. In my home I make no such assumptions.

I don't see how this point is relevant when the police can bug your house with a warrant.

As already explained, there is still an important distinction. One would first have to be the subject of some kind of criminal investigation, and then your house could be bugged from that point in time.

When data is requested from a device like a smart speaker, suddenly everything that has been said, even before a potential investigation, would be accessible.

They can bug my house, but they can still only listen in on what is being said after the bug was installed.

Smart speakers transcribe everything they hear, meaning you lose all tone and nuances of speech patterns, creating a very dangerous cocktail when allowing law enforcement to do text searches or even worse, let AI sift through it.

Imagine a speaker that is “always on” while watching black hawk down, or Air Force one, transcribing every line, or worse, a line here or there.

I have the same opinion of wide surveillance as DNA registers. It allows for law enforcement to be lazy, and does not guarantee the right person is convicted. In fact it moves the burden of evidence from the prosecutor to the defendant. Suddenly you have to prove your innocence instead of law enforcement having to prove your guilt.

The same functionality to remotely enable the microphone is available on both cell phones and smart speakers. They are largely similar hardware under the surface.