What a crazy family. There has to be more to the story than the reporter was willing to report. I'm going out on a limb to say that this family is doing something they probably shouldn't doing.
It reminds me of the people who are worried about the governments ability to ease-drop on our phone calls, e-mails, blogs, or even our tweets. These are the same people that are worried about Google keep logs of everything we ever search. Sure I get right to privacy, but personally I'm attempting to live without anything to hide. I figure if someone wants to listen in, well, "welcome to the show!"
Certainly I don't think I'd ever let my paranoia force me to live silent conversations for 11 years. That's just ridiculous.