According to a former employee of the security firm, Britney Spears’ father and the security firm he hired to protect her maintained an extensive surveillance apparatus that monitored her communications.
During his nine-year tenure as an executive assistant and operations and cybersecurity manager for Black Box, the security company, Alex Vlasov was able to substantiate his allegations with emails, text messages, and audio recordings he had access to. In an interview with The New York Times for the documentary “Controlling Britney Spears,” which was published on Friday, he admitted to the allegations.
Recording talks in a private setting and mirroring text messages without the permission of both participants may be considered a violation of the law in certain jurisdictions. It is unclear if the judge supervising Ms. Spears’ conservatorship was aware of or had authorised the monitoring of the singer and her family.
Mr. Vlasov’s testimony, along with his extensive collection of documents, paints the most complete picture yet of what Ms. Spears’s life has been like over the last 13 years while under conservatorship. The persistent monitoring operation, according to Mr. Vlasov, assisted many individuals associated with the conservatorship — principally her father, James P. Spears — in exerting control over virtually every area of her life.
The following statement was made by Mr. Spears’ attorney in response to specific inquiries from The Times: “All of his activities were fully within the boundaries of the power bestowed upon him by the court.” It seems likely that his activities were taken with the knowledge and permission of Britney, her court-appointed counsel, and/or the court in which they occurred. Jamie’s track record as conservator — as well as the court’s acceptance of his decisions — speak for themselves.
His supervisors had repeatedly informed him that the strict monitoring measures were required to adequately safeguard Ms. Spears and that she had expressed a desire to be placed under conservatorship, Mr. Vlasov said in his statement. Upon hearing Ms. Spears’s remarks before the court in June, when she excoriated the legal system, her conservators, and her managers, he said he felt obliged to share his knowledge with the authorities. She referred to the arrangement as “abusive.”
After a series of public battles and concerns about Ms. Spears’ mental health and potential substance abuse, her father, Jamie, was appointed conservator in 2008. This was shortly after Ms. Spears was taken to the hospital by ambulance for involuntary psychiatric evaluations on two separate occasions, prompting the appointment of Jamie as conservator. He was granted extensive authority over her life and estate, including the authority to provide round-the-clock protection for Ms. Spears’s well-being.
However, after Ms. Spears’s remarks in court in June, the judge granted her the authority to choose her own attorney, Mr. Rosengart, for the first time in her legal career. Mr. Rosengart moved quickly to have Mr. Spears removed from his position as conservator of the singer’s estate. Mr. Spears suddenly requested that the court examine whether to terminate the conservatorship completely on September 7 after arguing for months that there were no grounds for his removal.
