To be clear, I’m not saying secretly recording conversations with a mic never happens, just that it didn’t happen in this case.

To the other story you linked, what we know happened is that some company had a slide deck claiming they have that capability. It could be that they really did and that it’s used everywhere. It could also be that they were judging interest and didn’t even look into the feasibility of building it. It could be that they wanted publicity by manufacturing some controversial news and never even wanted to build it. Or, again, it could be true. But all we know for a fact, in that case, is that a slide deck existed. Not that any product existed, let alone that it was deployed anywhere.

Again, I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, it probably does, but that story doesn’t prove it either.