Why does Sound Recorder in Cyanogenmod need network permission? It doesn't seem to be able to share sound recordings. Why does it need that permission? Cyanogenmod 10.1 although I've seen it in other versions.
There's no malicous intent you can safely use it.

This App has been part of the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) since at least Android 1.5 Cupcake and Cyanogenmod only adapted it.

Here's CM's source code which shows it was only copied from the original AOSP code:
https://github.com/CyanogenMod/android_packages_apps_SoundRecorder/blame/cm-10.2/AndroidManifest.xml
Here's the initial AOSP version from 2007 which already has the same permission grant:
https://android.googlesource.com/platform/packages/apps/SoundRecorder/+/e2118f54af4c5215bd988979769e383292b9c9cb/AndroidManifest.xml

Now one may ask why it has this grant in AOSP already: I don't know why, it's seemingly not needed.