That said, "conspiracy territory" gets close to a knee jerk reaction.
History is full of conspiracies.
A conspiracy is just many people doing each other favors under the table and taking covert action to promote their private interests or political beliefs, something which happens all the time.
Heck, didn't a President resign because he conspired (including eavesdropping) against the other party?
Wasn't another in bed with mafia leaders? [2]
Haven't a third had friends profiteering of a trillion+ dollar war effort (Haliburton, etc), even using false testimony [3, 4]?
Don't tons of ex-politicians usually end up on boards of private companies they helped pass favorable legislation for and done favors to?
Haven't large corporations strong-armed whole nations, toppled governments, pushed for their own lackeys, etc [5]?
Wasn't the head of the FBI targeting, spying on, and blackmailing his personal opponents and for his personal gain? [6]
Just to mention a few examples, just the tip of the iceberg...
As Gore Vidal once wrote: "Americans have been trained by the media to go into Pavlovian giggles at the mention of the word "conspiracy," because for an American to believe in a conspiracy, he must also believe in flying saucers or, craziest of all, that more than one person was involved in the JFK murder" (Gore Vidal)
https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/security/a145332...
Is this maybe?
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jun/23/google-ea...
Is this?
https://www.geekwire.com/2018/heres-amazon-say-investigating...
Perhaps this?
https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2018/07/09/smart-tvs-are-sp...
That said, "conspiracy territory" gets close to a knee jerk reaction.
History is full of conspiracies.
A conspiracy is just many people doing each other favors under the table and taking covert action to promote their private interests or political beliefs, something which happens all the time.
Heck, didn't a President resign because he conspired (including eavesdropping) against the other party?
Wasn't another in bed with mafia leaders? [2]
Haven't a third had friends profiteering of a trillion+ dollar war effort (Haliburton, etc), even using false testimony [3, 4]?
Don't tons of ex-politicians usually end up on boards of private companies they helped pass favorable legislation for and done favors to?
Haven't large corporations strong-armed whole nations, toppled governments, pushed for their own lackeys, etc [5]?
Wasn't the head of the FBI targeting, spying on, and blackmailing his personal opponents and for his personal gain? [6]
Just to mention a few examples, just the tip of the iceberg...
As Gore Vidal once wrote: "Americans have been trained by the media to go into Pavlovian giggles at the mention of the word "conspiracy," because for an American to believe in a conspiracy, he must also believe in flying saucers or, craziest of all, that more than one person was involved in the JFK murder" (Gore Vidal)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watergate_scandal [2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/oct/07/michaelellison [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_testimony [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halliburton#Controversies [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Edgar_Hoover