I completely understand all the criticism toward this piece, and I don't think I would ever publish anything like this without at least some hard evidence, but I also wouldn't be surprised if he were completely right about his assumptions. Thinking skeptically about everything is a good habit, but sometimes the consequence of thinking like an intelligent reasonable person is that you forget how bafflingly stupid the world can really be.

Are all of the author's suspicions totally unfounded? Yeah, probably, because he has no good evidence to back them up. Do they lead to a narrative that is completely unreasonable and absurd? Absolutely. But it's also possible that the people who are spying on him are behaving in a way that is completely unreasonable and absurd, and are just competent enough to cover their tracks so a layperson won't have any evidence on them.

I don't have a ton of confidence in what I'm saying right now, but uh... I just don't blame him too much, is all. I definitely wouldn't dismiss him as a bad journalist or anything.