Tucker Carlson Claims Surveillance Could Be Killing Your Smartphone's Battery Life: 'I Resent Having No Privacy'

Conservative media personality Tucker Carlson thinks that his phone's battery life was wrecked because of surveillance.

What Happened: After alleging that the National Security Agency (NSA) spied on him and hacked into his Signal account, Carlson now thinks that surveillance can kill a smartphone's battery life.

"I resent having no privacy because privacy is a prerequisite for freedom, but I can't change it, and so I have the same surveilled cell phone," Carlson said on the Lex Fridman Podcast.

He alleged that his phone was being surveilled by the South Korean government when he visited North Korea in 2019 along with former President Donald Trump.

"I was like, ‘I like the South Korean government. Why would they do that?'"

See Also: ‘Nothing Is Secure’: Tucker Carlson Accuses NSA Of Intercepting And Leaking Encrypted Signal Chats

"If you have too much spyware on your phone, this is true, it wrecks the battery."

Carlson claimed that his phone's battery would drain in 45 minutes. While this explains his paranoia, there could be any number of reasons for it. It could be a rogue app running in the background and hitting the battery hard, or it could just be a case of a degraded battery itself.

"I would probably not be actively angry about being surveilled because I'm just so old and I actually do pay my taxes."

"Intel services in the United States are actively engaged in US politics and media, that's so unacceptable. That makes democracy impossible."

Why It Matters: While there is no evidence to suggest that Carlson was under state surveillance, spyware can wreak havoc on a smartphone's battery.

For instance, in 2009, thousands of BlackBerry users in the United Arab Emirates were targeted with spyware that was delivered to them in the form of a legitimate software update straight from BlackBerry.

The update drained batteries, and researchers eventually found out that it was due to spyware designed by a U.S.-based firm named SS8, which sells surveillance tools to state-owned intelligence agencies.

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Photo courtesy: Gage Skidmore via Wikimedia