57 Comments

• tz says:

  February 3, 2006 at 4:33 pm

  One other consideration – think about China, and the item of exposure is the fact the person is a Christian, or even a pastor, or holds services in their home. They will be imprisoned for their faith. Or under the Nazis that someone was hiding Jews.
• Eric & Lisa says:

  February 3, 2006 at 8:04 pm

  There are also other forms of blackmail.
  For example, I could threaten Joe that I would spam his website and get a group together to spam his website everyday until it is gone off the web unless he pays us money not to do it.
  That’s like Mobster window insurance. You pay us for window insurance. Those who don’t pay start winding up with broken windows all the time.
  There are many different types of blackmail.
• Eric & Lisa says:

  February 3, 2006 at 8:04 pm

  There are also other forms of blackmail.
  For example, I could threaten Joe that I would spam his website and get a group together to spam his website everyday until it is gone off the web unless he pays us money not to do it.
  That’s like Mobster window insurance. You pay us for window insurance. Those who don’t pay start winding up with broken windows all the time.
  There are many different types of blackmail.
• tz says:

  February 3, 2006 at 9:17 pm

  Threatening violence or property is more commonly referred to as extortion, but blackmail may be a special case of extortion, or perhaps in a more general usage (at m-w.com, the 1st definition for blackmail is an old one which is about threatening pillage).
  The original post elsewhere was about someone threatening exposure of a senator’s sexual (dis)orientiation if they voted for Alito – which I would note did NOT involve money, but a senate vote (more akin to my example of a juror above).
• Soup says:

  February 3, 2006 at 10:01 pm

  Joe,
  I spent some time exploring the Calvinsim vs. Arminianism issue tonight, take a look over at my blog when you have a few minutes.
  I’m interested in your feedback.
• pgepps says:

  February 4, 2006 at 5:28 am

  @Eric & Lisa–
  Not to take issue unnecessarily, but you are making a minor error in your post.
  There are many forms of *extortion* (gaining money through threats). One kind of extortion is blackmail (gaining money through threats of exposure of harmful information).
  There are, of course, different forms of blackmail, but it’s a little “off” to call extortion that doesn’t involve threats of *exposure* “blackmail.”
  Cheers,
  PGE
• Boonton says:

  February 4, 2006 at 2:01 pm

  The right to keep information proprietary does NOT depend on the potential exposer’s motives. It doesn’t matter if I am trying to help poor music fans or hurt the record companies if I distribute an MP3.
  True some information is proprietary but this has nothing to do with blackmail law. If I know you once had an abortion because I hacked into your credit card statements that is illegal whether or not I attempt to blackmail you. If I know you once had an abortion because I saw you go to a clinic or because I heard you talking about it to a friend in a Starbucks, it isn’t illegal for me to know that or even publish it but it is illegal for me to go to you and say I will publish unless you pay me something. Why?
  The case of known criminal conduct where instead of exposing the crime (so the investigation will focus on the proper individual – and innocents are going to be bothered by being investigated, and some are even convicted), the evil is in NOT reporting it. If I can pay you to do one evil act (not expose the true criminal), why shouldn’t I also be able to pay you to do other forms of evil?
  Ahhhh but it’s illegal to blackmail even here. I have no legal obligation to tell the police that I know you’re a drug user but it is illegal to say I’ll report you unless you pay me $50 per week….if I do report you after saying this that in itself becomes evidence that could be used against me!
  Or consider prostitution or a jury vote. These tend to be considered crimes only when money is charged or exchanged. Why cannot I pay for consent and why ought not the Judge’s gavel function just like an auctioneer’s?
  A different case, the judge or jury member already has an outstanding obligation to the state to decide cases impartially. Since they have already been ‘brought’ so to speak they are cheating their clients in a manner of speaking if they sell their judgement to you. Likewise if I hire a lawyer to sue Joe then that lawyer has a COI which would prevent him from accepting money from Joe for services.

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