(WMR) -- WMR has learned from a reliable source that the GOP convention organizers in St. Paul installed special microphones and cameras in the Xcel Energy Center in order to monitor who delegates were chatting with and listen in on their conversations. Similar technology, WMR is told, was used by the Republicans at the 2004 national convention in New York at Madison Square Garden.

The eavesdropping on state delegations involved the use of powerful pan, zoom, and tilt camera technology and noise-canceling shotgun microphones, similar to those used sporting events by broadcasters.

The cover for the eavesdropping equipment was that it was part of Internet coverage for the convention. Yesterday, The Washington Times reported on the presence of “Black Hat” squads on the convention floor in St. Paul that tracked Ron Paul supporters and other potential disruptors. Wearing black ball caps with white stars, the squads were authorized to yank delegates’ credentials and remove them from the convention floor.

The high-tech Big Brother system kept track of conversations held within state delegations, especially those of non-McCain delegates who originally were pledged to Paul and Mitt Romney. Paul received 15 votes from the floor, although the Oklahoma delegation’s microphone was cut off before Senator Jim Inhofe could announce two votes for Paul. The GOP’s Big Brother surveillance of the Oklahoma delegation likely picked up the conversations about Oklahoma’s vote beforehand, prompting the silencing of the microphone.

WMR has been told that the same group of GOP high-tech spies are involved in yet another operation to engineer the 2008 presidential election for the Republican ticket using connections to private companies’ election tallying computers and voting machines around the United States. The operation is primarily based in Chattanooga, Tennessee and Enterprise, Alabama, the same locations that served as headquarters for the election engineering carried out in 2004. The group of high-tech experts was responsible for the flipping of votes in Ohio, New Mexico, Nevada, Iowa, Florida and other states in 2004, as well as statewide elections in Alabama and Georgia in 2002.

Previously published in the Wayne Madsen Report.

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