A SECURITY firm hired by Britney Spears’ father Jamie, claimed that they had access to the singer’s text messages, phone calls, and emails through a “listening device” installed in her bedroom.
The Daily Mail reported the news after a New York Times documentary about the pop star was released on Friday.
5
5
In the documentary titled: Controlling Britney Spears, former employee of Black Box Security, Alex Vlasov revealed that the company had access to Britney’s phone on an IPad by logging into her iCloud account where all of her communication was stored.
Alex explained that he was asked to encrypt some of the singer’s text conversations to send to her father along with an employee of a business management firm he had hired.
The move was allegedly for the artist’s “own security and protection” to which Alex was told that her attorney as well as the court overseeing her conservatorship was “aware of it.”
“Their reason for minoring was looking for bad influences, looking for potential illegal activity that might happen, but they would also monitor conversations with her friends, with her mom, with her lawyer Sam Ingham. If there’s anybody that should be off limits, it should be Britney’s lawyer,” said Alex.
He claimed: “Her own phone and her own private conversations were used so often to control her. I know for a fact that Jamie would confront Britney and say, “Hey why didn’t you text this person?”‘
“Just because you’re in control doesn’t give you the right to treat people like property. It didn’t feel like she was being treated like a human being,” he added.
Alex also allegedly confessed that Black Box Security President Edan Yemini and another employee of the company asked him to erase the audio recordings, which captured 180 hours of audio recording, including conversations with her boyfriend and children.
“I asked what was on it, [Edin and another employee] seemed very nervous and said it was extremely sensitive, that nobody can ever know about this and that’s why I need to delete everything on it, so there’s no record of it,” said Alex.
“That raised so many red flags with me and I did not want to be complicit in whatever they were involved in, so I kept a copy because I didn’t want to delete evidence, and I don’t think it was a coincidence it was done days before she was due to meet with a court investigator.”
An attorney for Britney’s father commented that the use of surveillance was “well within the parameters of the authority conferred upon him by the court.”
The superstar was also allegedly required to take her medication in the presence of the security team each day as they monitored her closely.
BRIT’S BATTLE
Britney had been living under her dad’s power, the sole conservator of her estate since 2008.
Her father had been in control of her most important life decisions, from financial transactions to medical care, in what the hitmaker branded an “abusive” conservatorship.
However, Jamie stepped down from his role as her conservator after he allegedly became the “target of unjustified attacks.”
Over the last few months, the story of the Grammy-award winner’s fight for freedom has been in the limelight as fans demand answers motioning the #FreeBritney movement.
NEW DOCUMENTARY
The NYT documentary is a follow-up to Hulu’s “Framing Britney Spears” doc, which sparked public outcry about the hitmaker’s conservatorship.
The first installment led to fans calling for her release from her father Jamie’s supervision on social media.
Samantha Stark, director of both “Framing” and “Controlling” explained that the reason behind Britney, 39, not speaking up about her conservatorship earlier is that “she didn’t think people would believe her.”
The filmmaker explained: “She said she felt abused under the conservatorship and questioned whether the judge thought she was lying.
“Britney’s speech motivated the people in this film to seek us out to share their stories — at great risk to themselves — because they felt compelled to back up what Britney was saying with evidence they had or moments they witnessed.”
The documentary’s producer also explained how the singer’s situation created a discourse about the “important questions about the conservatorship system at large and whether it is working properly.”
“We felt that it was in the public interest to examine that.”
Britney’s latest court hearing is scheduled for Wednesday, September 29, hearing her petition to terminate the conservatorship altogether.
5
5
5
We pay for your stories!
Do you have a story for The Central Recorder team?