Another important aspect is whether or not the belief in these theories is justified, regardless of whether or not they turn out to be true. This kind of relate

Another important aspect is whether or not the belief in these theories is justified, regardless of whether or not they turn out to be true. This kind of relates to the Gettier problem in epistemology, where one may "know" something completely by accident, and we wouldn't really consider that "knowledge." Were conspiracy theorists justified in believing their theories prior to the NSA leaks? Maybe, maybe not. But we should probably consider that independently of whether or not their theories turned out to be right. After all, we can never be 100% sure of our knowledge; the best we can do is seek the most reliable methods of inquiry. If a conspiracy theorist makes 50 predictions and 45 of them turn out to be correct, then we might have a reason to adopt their thought patterns; if someone has one big suspicion and that suspicion turns out to be true, I'm not sure how much we can conclude from that. (Sorry, I know this discussion is getting off-topic... I just have a mild fascination with conspiracy theories and epistemology.)