I once read somewhere the phone companies can turn on land line home
phones even if the phones are hung up and they can listen to
sounds/voices up to about thirty feet away.(sort of like when we click
on music on the internet to listen to) U.S.Military and government can
listen in to cell phones,they can also blank out all cell phones in a
given area.

I keep my land line phone (cheap $8.47 corded phone I bought at a Wal
Mart store) unplugged except when I want to use it because I used to get
so many telemarketing phone calls,so I just keep the d..n thing
unplugged.I dont have a computer microphone and I dont ever want one
either.I can connect a microphone to my webtv set top box and send up to
about thirty seconds of sound/voice with emails/but I wont do that
either.
cuhulin