While privacy of the home has long been a cherished tenet of American life, including the ability to share personal intimacies among family and friends away from the eyes and ears of others, modern homes are quickly moving into the futuristic world of "The Jetsons" cartoon –possibly at the expense of that revered privacy.

Matsushita Electronic Industrial Company is one entity with a dream to make Jetsonian-type living a common standard. Matsushita announced late last year they it has developed a computer chip that will allow a broadband connection to any home appliance simply by plugging it into an electrical socket. The technology the Japan-based firm has created is capable of transmitting data via the electric wiring in homes at speeds faster than Ethernet.

The ramifications of broadcasting television signals alone through common electrical plugs is staggering. Current cabling and wireless networking of homes, offices and structures would become obsolete. Any residence in the United States with electrical outlets would be capable of being "online" all the time. Additional arming of home appliances with small cameras or listening devices would allow real-time video and audio to be gathered by those looking to invade Americans' dwellings.

Already the push to allow intra-home communication between appliances is being lauded as a home-improvement luxury. Imagine the efficiency of a microwave oven heating up vegetables at exactly the correct time as directed by the cooking stove preparing the main course. Another example would be the data the washer passes on to the dryer about the proper heating cycle to use with the current batch of clothes being cleaned.

What kind of privacy can a person have if all those "conversations" between home appliances are transmitted outside of the home? Some believe this is the realm Matsushita, the manufacturer of Panasonic products, wants to venture into. How much money would corporations or a governmental body be willing to spend to have access to all the things your home appliances could tell them about you, privacy advocates wonder. Other alarming possibilities include home cooking appliances refusing to prepare foods that may be considered "bad" for your health or bedside clocks that enforce when it's time for you to sleep.

The prospect of capturing information through power outlets has been a security issue of the U.S. government for many years. Research initially was concerned with the discovery that electromagnetic emanations from computer monitors and printers could be acquired through power line connections. The federal government then established the codename "TEMPEST," which encompasses the standards set to limit or encrypt such emanations. The U.S. Army Information Systems Engineering Command at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., is one such TEMPEST testing facility.

The word TEMPEST in some arenas also circulates as a catchphrase for supposed governmental spying activities of electrical emanations from private citizens. The Matsushita announcement to relay data at broadband speed through the vast electrical power grid is a tremendous commercial discovery, but some wonder how far the technology has been developed through the United States Department of Defense. Exactly how powerful TEMPEST-type snooping is at the government level remains a mystery. Clearly the Matsushita declaration will only fuel the investigative fires looking into TEMPEST technologies.

Liz McIntyre, co-author of the book, "Spychips: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track Your Every Move with RFID," believes that "broadband over power lines greatly increases the potential for unwanted spying." In "Spychips," McIntyre documented with fellow author Katherine Albrecht how Radio Frequency Identification, or RFID, is quickly being slated to tag all merchandise and possibly humans.

When asked about government agencies using TEMPEST to glean data from privately owned computer monitors, McIntyre lamented, "That would be completely keeping with history for spy agencies to exploit the technology." In their book, Albrecht and McIntyre detailed one example of how new refrigerators could be programmed to read the RFID tags of the merchandise they hold and then transmit that information elsewhere. When a refrigerator runs out of a particular item, its owners' television might respond by selectively advertising the product, or simply tell the homeowners that their delivery is on its way.

The above scenario is possible today if refrigerators are enabled with the Matsushita chip. The Matsushita technology makes a gigantic leap forward by sending data through existing power lines. This in turn makes RFID applications much more appealing to corporations because they do not have to wait for millions of home appliances to be hardwired – the existing plug and socket conduit Harvey Hubbell patented in 1904 will do just fine.

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Joe Schlabach is an independent researcher, public speaker and freelance journalist.