The FBI Can Listen To Your Laptop Via Your Microphone

The FBI has hired hackers and trained its staff to use hacking techniques to expand its domestic surveillance capabilities, according to The Wall Street Journal.

These programs can extend so far as to include tapping into your laptop's microphone to check out what's going on.

From the WSJ:

The FBI develops some hacking tools internally and purchases others from the private sector. With such technology, the bureau can remotely activate the microphones in phones running Google Inc.'s GOOG +0.26% Android software to record conversations, one former U.S. official said. It can do the same to microphones in laptops without the user knowing, the person said. Google declined to comment.

As one would presume, there's no comment from the FBI, either.