Good idea, in a normal situation we would do what you suggest right away. 

This is an unusual case; we aren't so much concerned about the proper operation of the camera -- as the possible threat of an eavesdropping device.  

It would be helpful to know of other cameras have been found to be noisy in this fashion -- or if this one is unique.  Perhaps someone could pass this forum thread along to the Cisco folks who do hardware qualification or QC.

If you are concerned about the possibility of an eavesdropping device, i would have thought that was even more reason to remove the camera and replace it with another one (and test the replacement too).

You are on the right track.

Actually it's a bit like a computer that is suspected of having malware.  The IT department is inclined to just wipe the drive and get it back in service.  The incident handlers want to figure out what is going on before the opportunity is gone.

The reason we would not want to RMA the thing is that the question would never be answered.  Comparing the suspect camera with another will likely show us the obvious...it's different.  Digging into the circuitry with inductive probes may be able to focus the discussion a bit.

In a similar situation with a different manufacturer's product we explained our findings and the factory engineer explained the source of what we were seeing... it was a production bug that they saw popping up occasionally.  That is the sort of answer we were hoping to discover on the forum.

Thanks for thinking along with us.