Defending the blackmailer: legal and ethical arguments

Defending the Blackmailer

An introduction to blackmail

Blackmail is a term used when someone gives threats to a person whose secrets he/she knows along with the fact that they want to hide those secrets. While blackmailing the blackmailer asks for some sort of valuable good in order to keep his/her silence and if that particular amount of goods is given to the blackmailer the secret remains safe. However, the thing to be kept in mind here is that there is no way of being sure if the blackmailer will come back or not (Block, 2010).

Since, the blackmailer wants something of interest in order to keep his silence, if he is not given what he has asked for, it is very much possible that he would start telling the secrets and nothing can really be done about that as, all he would be doing is making use of freedom of expression. Therefore, in case of rejecting the blackmail offer one should be ready to face the consequences of their actions (Block, 2001).

Blackmail can't only be when a person tries to threaten to expose someone's secrets it can also be used to help someone get dirt on a competitor or opposition in return for some kind of favor of course. However, it might seem like the blackmailer is just asking for some kind of goods such as money to keep the information with him (instead of disclosing it) or that otherwise he would just make use of his right to speak and there is nothing illegal in it but the truth of the matter is that blackmailing is illegal and it is considered a crime and of course for the right reasons as well. As, no one has the right to go on threatening people, if they have some information about some illegal activity committed by a person they need to let the authorities know about it rather than thinking of what they can get out of it (Block, 2001).

If blackmailing is looked at in such a way that it is the offer or a threat which is made if the blackmailer doesn't get his demands fulfilled such as: if a person is threatening to expose some information that is embarrassing to someone or if he is saying that he won't seduce one's fiance if he gets the money then, if these two acts are separately looked upon we reach the decision that neither telling information nor the seduction is criminal act when they are committed separately then how come they become illegal when they are combined together (Block, 2001)?

It is very important to know and understand that blackmailing is an act which is very much different than extortion although it does look like they are similar. However, it has to be kept in mind that when money is being asked for to refrain from doing something legal it is a different issue whereas, when an extortionist asks a person for some money otherwise he will put their office building on fire is a completely different issue as, he is threatening them to commit an illegal act if he isn't paid to do otherwise (Block, 2001).

Various forms of Blackmail

Secrets can be exposed by two main methods: blackmailing and gossip. However, the main difference between the two is that in blackmailing the person can be kept quite if paid the amount that he wants whereas, in case of gossip, it will spread anyway and without any kind of warning. Therefore, when it comes to keeping the secrets safe blackmailer is a better option than the gossiper as, he will be able to keep the secrets safe for a price which can't be said for the person spreading the gossips (Block, 2010).

The reason why the person spreading the gossip is considered to be a lot more dangerous than the one who is blackmailing is because in case of the gossiper you have everything to lose while with the blackmailer if a person feels that the price being asked for is less than the secret, it is a wise option to go with what the blackmailer wants because although the person will be choosing lesser of the two evils but at least the secrets will be safe (Block, 2010).

There is another scenario in which the person being blackmailed might have to deny the demands of the blackmailer; this kind of scenario takes place when the price for silence that is being asked by the blackmailer is a lot more than the secret is worth. In case of a situation like this the person spreading gossips and the blackmailer are equally dangerous as, they will both be spreading the information that will hurt or humiliate others. However, in this case the information spread by the blackmailer can prove to be a lot worse than the one spread by the gossiper as, people at times tend to dismiss what is said by the gossiper (Block, 2010).

Blackmail is not always in the form of 'money for silence' but this is the most common type of blackmail. At times people can make other demands as well so, basically blackmailing is all about the threats delivered to people. Also, blackmailing in itself isn't really illegal i.e. until and unless some particular demands aren't met. Therefore, it is difficult to take legal actions against blackmailing without proper proof and certainty that the actions being done are illegal (Block, 2010).

It has always been very important how people perceive various actions, for example, there are a lot of actions that are done by the public which can qualify as blackmailing but they are appreciated by the people as, they are seen as the acts of great courage and are given a lot of respectability. The labor unions strikes or boycotts are a perfect example of public blackmailing as, the union members refuse to work until and unless their demands are met and if the contractors hire other people to work for them then these strikers assert. This kind of behavior is a perfect example of an act which in itself isn't illegal and it will be carried out if some particular demands aren't agreed upon (Block, 2010).

Ten different cases have been described by Fletcher (as cited in Block, 2001) in his paper in order to be examples of blackmailing that can be used to help understand various theories. In these examples D. And V are the two assumed individuals (Block, 2001).

1. Tort case: D's car has been hit by V's car and D. has threatened V that if V won't pay for the damage D. will sue him.

2. Late employee: D. is V's employer and V has been threatened by him that V will be fired if he doesn't come to work on time.

3. Crime case: D. has not been paid and so D. has threatened V to report the probable crime committed by him to the local newspaper.

4. Hush money: V is a huge celebrity and D. has threatened him to tell the media a damaging truth about V such as, drug use, unless V pays him the "hush money."

5. Baseball case: D. has a baseball which has an autograph by Babe Ruth and he offers to sell it to V for $6,000 as, he knows that V has a kid whose is very ill and having that autograph ball will make him happy.

6. Political embarrassment: D. is a black activist and has anti-white views where as V is a black political candidate and is uncomfortable about his association with D. D threatens V to pay him a particular amount of money otherwise D. will tell the media about V's support of D's anti-white ideas which will affect V's political career.

7. Dinner kiss: D. is threatening V that he won't kiss V if they won't go out for dinner.

8. Paid silence: V is a black political candidate and D. is against white people therefore, V goes to D. And pays him $20,000 to keep his silence until the elections are over.

9. Tattoo case: D. threatens to get his complete body tattooed until and unless he isn't pay a specific sum of money.

10. Lascivious employer: V has been threatened by her employer D. To sleep with him or V will get fired.

The threats involved in blackmail

When talking about the threats that are included in the whole blackmailing activity it has been observed that the threats are feared and misunderstood a lot more than the concept of blackmailing itself. Although initially everyone believes that giving threats is a very immoral thing to do however, it is mainly the concept of aggression that makes one do what the other person is saying, for example, if a bus driver is charging a lot more on a deserted road the passenger would probably agree to paying the bus driver to avoid his aggressive behavior (Block, 2010).

Therefore, there is only one major difference between the gossips and blackmailing that, in blackmailing there is still some chance of keeping the blackmailer silent whereas, you can't stop the person who is spreading the gossip (Block, 2010).

It is very important to know about the nature of the threats as well as, in a case that the blackmailer is threatening of violence there needs to be a proper action taken against such behavior as, no one has any right to be violent against people and to make the people fearful (Block, 2010).

It is really difficult to call a threat an "illegitimate" act as, mostly the threat made by the blackmailer are his/her right such as: the right to speak, or to refuse to give their services to certain stores or to persuade other people to do what he is doing, therefore, as these threats aren't really illegitimate it is very difficult to call the threats an illegal action (Block, 2010).

If blackmailing is looked at in such a way that it is the offer or a threat which is made if the blackmailer doesn't get his demands fulfilled such as: if a person is threatening to expose some information that is embarrassing to someone or if he is saying that he won't seduce your fiance if he gets the money then, if you look at these two acts separately we reach the decision that neither telling information nor the seduction is criminal act when they are committed separately then how come they become illegal when they are combined together (Block, 2001)?

It is very important to know and understand that blackmailing is an act which is very much different than extortion although it does look like they are similar. However, it has to be kept in mind that when money is being asked for to refrain from doing something legal it is a different issue whereas, when an extortionist asks you for some money otherwise he will put your office building on fire is a completely different issue as, he is threatening you to commit an illegal act if he isn't paid to do otherwise (Block, 2001).

Examples of political blackmailing

There are many example in which the politicians are and had been blackmailing various industries for many years now, some of the examples of such incidences are given below:

It was in 1992 that the Federal Communications Commission was authorized by the Congress to observe and keep the prices of the cable television under control and since that time the cable industry pays the Congress million of dollars every year to eliminate that control over the cable television. However, the cable industry hasn't yet been rewarded for their generous contributions (DiLorenzo, 2000).

It recently happened that a regulation has been purposed according to which the content of alcohol in the blood or the blood alcohol content (BAC) is purposed to be reduced from .10 to .08, the main purpose of this regulation is to get the huge sums of money that will continuously keep on coming as the campaign contributions. It was declared by the federal government's Office of Substance Abuse Prevention that their ultimate goal is to get the blood alcohol content to .04. A law of this kind was purposed in 1998 as well and although it wasn't approved but what it did was it helped in getting huge amounts of money and contributions from the alcoholic beverage industry in order to beat this neo-prohibitionist legislation (DiLorenzo, 2000).

Another example of the political blackmailing from the recent past is regarding the Clinton administration's proposal to put price control on medicines, doctors as well as hospital to make the socialize medicine possible. Although this plan wasn't a huge success but it was noticed and stated in the New York Times that soon after this regulation was purposed Clinton's political party started getting huge sums of money from the medical industry and it was strange for them to be getting so many contributions in a non-election year. However, it wasn't known if the health plan would be accepted or not but what was noticed was the immediate benefits that the Congress was getting (DiLorenzo, 2000).

It was in 1994 that approximately $1million were received in a campaign contribution after a legislation was proposed by Jim Cooper, this legislation was not as tiring as the one that was proposed by Clinton and these $1million dollars were collected in the first four months after the proposal of the legislation and it was also noted that in 1993 the contribution made for the campaign were approximately one-third higher than the ones that were made in the previous non-election year. Another major thing which was reported during that time was that whenever Hillary Clinton made some sort of speech in which she threatened the pharmaceutical companies they would sell her pharmaceutical stock short each time. And during 1993-94 when this Clinton Health plan was underway it was noticed that the stock of the pharmaceuticals drops by approximately $40 billion. However, of course at the end of the day this plan was defeated when the pharmaceutical industry literally filled the coffers of Washington with their money (DiLorenzo, 2000).

Therefore, it can be observed from these examples how the politicians had in the past and they still are abusing various industries by blackmailing them in one way or another and at the end those industries have to do what the politicians wants in order to survive.

Legitimizing blackmail

If legitimizing blackmail has to be considered it would have to be considered with regards to the legal code of the libertarian political philosophy and in order to that it is firstly important to define the terms first. According to Murray Rothbard this legal code would emphasize on the libertarian principle regarding not using aggression on any person or any kind of property, [and] the property right have to be defined with regards to the libertarian principle (Block, 2001).

In light of this law people can do whatever they wish for; however, they have to keep in mind, the fact that they can't turn violent or aggressive against anyone and that if they have the right to do whatever they want then so do the other people. In this way no one can really get hurt and everyone can be happy (Block, 2001).

It was in 1997 that Fred McChesney who was a law professor in the Cornell University said that extortion and blackmailing are a result of the modern regulatory process. To say it all in a concise manner: the legislation or the regulations are "threatened" by the politicians to control the prices or to increase them and since these practices would reduce the profit margins the concerned companies in order to stop these laws from passing start contributing to the political campaigns or compensate the politicians personally by, for example giving their relative various high levels jobs, sponsor luxurious vacations etc. (DiLorenzo, 2000).

It is the job of the politicians to make sure that the legislation gets the contributions for the political campaign from the cash cow of the industry. It was said by a California legislator that a politician who will be needing funds for his campaign will have a bill that he will get introduced and that bill will cause some excitement among the constituency and they will start working for the defeat of the bill which is not difficult to achieve but it will definitely start the contributions coming in for the campaign (DiLorenzo, 2000).