From a reader:

Don’t be so quick to dismiss the comparison between small criminal conspiracies and massive government/secret society ones. The comparison works in your favor. I am a federal prosecutor, and we do routinely proescute criminal conspiracies. As Andy McCarthy will tell you, our primary evidence in those cases is almost always a conspirator who talked. In the criminal context we’re usually talking about a conspiracy of fewer than a dozen people, and yet there are always some who turn on their buddies. How can anyone believe that a conspiracy of tens of thousands would be able to operate without a single snitch?