Self-paced
The following passages are adapted from articles recently published in North American law review journals.
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Question ·
Why is blackmail illegal under Canadian and US law?
Blackmail combines two acts that are each legal alone -- threatning to expose info, and seeking money from another. Why is it illegal to combine these actions?
P2
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Consequences of lack of answer ·
No clear line between legal and illegal blackmail
Blackmail statutes are broad and cover conduct that most people would think should be legal.
P3
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Answer to question ·
Illegal because of triangular structure
Blackmailer uses leverage that's dependent on a third party (the government). This misuses a third party for the blackmailer's own benefit.
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Blackmail in Roman law ·
No special category for blackmail
Roman law evaluated actions based on harm, not based on the legality or illegality of the action itself.
P5
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Assumption about blackmail ·
Blackmail presumed harmful if it revealed hurt victim's reputation
Party who threatened blackmail had burden to prove good reason for revealing the info.
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Relevance of truth ·
Truth of a revealed fact not enough to make blackmail legal
True revelation was legal only if there was a legitimate purpose in revealing the info and the government had an interest in having the info revealed.
Passage Style
18.
Based on what can be ████████ ████ ███ █████████ █████ ███ ██ ███ █████████ ████ █████ ████ ████ ███████ █████ █████ ████ ███ █████ ███ ██ ███████ █████ ████████ ███ ████ ██████ ████
a
bribing tax officials ██ █████ ██ █████ ██████ █████
The passages don’t discuss the legality of bribery.
b
revealing to public ███████████ ████ █ ████████████ ████████ ███████ ███ █████████ █████ ████ ███ ██████████ ██████
This wouldn’t be illegal under Canadian and U.S. law due to free speech protections. But it wouldn’t necessarily be illegal under Roman law either, since it involves information that public authorities would have an interest in having revealed. (Public authorities would probably want to know that a state official is embezzling government funds.)
c
testifying in court ██ █ ███████████ █████████ █████ ███████ ████ ███ █████████ ██ ██████
The passages don’t discuss the legality of lying while testifying.
d
informing a government ███ ██████ ████ █████ █████████ ████ █████████ █████ ████ ██████
This wouldn’t be illegal under Canadian and U.S. law due to free speech protections. But it wouldn’t necessarily be illegal under Roman law either, since it involves information that public authorities would have an interest in having revealed. (Public authorities would probably want to know about false tax statements.)
e
revealing to the ██████ ████ █ █████████ ██████████ ███ ████ ███ ██ ██████████ ██████
This wouldn’t be illegal under Canadian and U.S. law due to free speech protections. And it likely would be illegal under Roman law, since there’s no clear reason to think that this is being done with good intentions or that public authorities have an interest in having this revealed.