This could mean a multitude of things. I wish the article had reference to some source. I seriously doubt that FBI can choose to record from any brand new Andro

This could mean a multitude of things. I wish the article had reference to some source. I seriously doubt that FBI can choose to record from any brand new Android phone - the entire OS being open source and routinely disassembled by the folks at xda. More likely the source of this is some malware/virus/app that when installed, grants FBI the ability to activate the mic at will. In which case, the article would be somewhat misguided.