Re: "No secret service agents? "
No longer necessary -
Present day surveillance technology enables clandestine audio monitoring from several blocks away, and is so advanced that barely audible whispers can be separated out from all other extraneous street noises and conversations.
In addition, technology already exists to enable visual surveillance of individuals and groups inside a closed structure (the ability to literally "see through walls") and monitor in 'real time' the number of persons and animals inside a building, their positions inside a room, and their movements.
And if you are incredulous at all of this, you should know that this is already "outdated" technology!
Present day science has advanced to such a state that, if it is not already available, the ability to retrieve all conversations made in rooms and places long since vacated will be a common every day law enforcement tool.
This is because scientists now recognize that everything we say and do affects the atomic and subatomic matter all around us, leaving a "record" on walls, curtains, floors, etc., which can then be retrieved using state of the art surveillance technology.
And...even without such methods, each and every cell phone in the world with a battery in it, even when turned "off", makes possible complete surveillance and recording of all conversations within the vicinity of that cell phone's location.
Wireless internet technology makes it simple and easy to spy on anyone, anywhere, at anytime.
After identifying the phone and its location on the globe, surveillance agents using wireless transmissions can silently and secretly download a software program into a cell phone which will activate its microphone, and record any and all conversations made by anyone in the vicinity of that phone.
The cell phone then uploads the recorded conversation via wireless back to the surveillance home base.
If you carry with you a cellphone with a battery in it, there is no place on earth where you can hide, and there are no sounds in that phone's vicinity that which can't be accessed by others anywhere on the planet.