Movie conspiracies — such as Three Days of the Condor — always work until a brave victim stands up to the bad guys and brings them down, usually violently, sometimes by informing the NYTimes.
In real life, conspiracies usually fail because someone who is part of the plan screws up. (And this is why some of us have difficulty believing in elaborate conspiracies — what some call "the Bubba Factor.")
Classic example: On July 4th, perhaps appropriately, the NYTimes revealed that the U.S. Postal Service has been tracking all our snail mail for years. How did it happen? A non-violent bookstore owner, on an FBI list as an "eco-terrorist," found an odd handwritten note in his mail.
“Show all mail to supv” — supervisor — “for copying prior to going out
on the street,” read the card. It included Mr. [Leslie James] Pickering’s name, address
and the type of mail that needed to be monitored. The word
“confidential” was highlighted in green.
[snip]
Mr. Pickering was targeted by a longtime surveillance system called mail
covers, a forerunner of a vastly more expansive effort, the Mail
Isolation Control and Tracking program, in which Postal Service
computers photograph the exterior of every piece of paper mail that is
processed in the United States — about 160 billion pieces last year. It
is not known how long the government saves the images.
In other words, someone inside the plot screwed up. Royally. Which inevitably revealed the plot Whether or not you support the tracking program, you cannot deny this much: No one was supposed to reveal it.
This is why conspiracies always fail in the end. Bubba.
Of course, some have a darker view — cue Ted Rall: 1984 is here: Yawn.
Kit Stolz 