[maemilius]

People have to charge their phones eventually. The easy way to do this is to store the recordings locally and only transmit when the phone is already charging.

If we're already considering government intervention, why wouldn't they just require that internet providers of all kinds _not_ meter data sent to them?

Unless our hypothetical government agency _really_ needs real-time data, there are plenty of ways they can mask their activity in a way that users won't ever notice.