The Mean Old Lady Eavesdropping Device

This is so not a good idea. You know that movie The Conversation? The whole damn world is going to be like that when you don't have to hire a surveillance professional and instead can just order your own little handheld gossip sniffer off the TV for $14.99. Previously you would have to go to a spy store or something to get that kind of equipment.

And don't think they don't know it. The ad is mostly pitching their doodad as a way to listen to TV for old people who don't want to admit they're going deaf and get a hearing aid. But then they sneak in the shot of the grouchy wife surreptitiously listening to the neighbors across the street as she pretends to check the mail.

Evil. If it catches on, this cheap new technology has the power to destroy privacy and radically change society for the worse. I'm all in favor of eavesdropping on international calls to suspected terrorists by the government. But this sucker? Talk about your chilling effect--a proliferation of dimestore snoops and petty spies does not make for a free society.

JYB Tailwag: Brea Canyon, again.