PT135.S3.P3.Q19 > Analytics

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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?

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.

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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.

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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

19.

The relationship between the ways ██ █████ ████████ ███ ████ ██████ ███ ███ █████████ █████ ███ █████ ██████████ ██ █████████ ██ ███ █████████ ██ ████ █████████ ██ ███ ████████████ ███████ █████ ███ ██ ███ █████████ ██████

Question Type

Analogy (RC)

Because this question is about how information in the first passage relates to information in the second, we should finish reading both passages before trying to answer it. We should then boil down the key traits of how each legal system treats blackmail. Canadian and U.S. common law explicitly calls blackmail illegal, even though it’s combination of otherwise legal acts. Roman law, meanwhile, makes blackmail implicitly illegal because it already has a broader rule against revealing damaging information about someone for selfish reasons. We’re looking for an analogous scenario, where one party explicitly prohibits an act even though it’s a combination of acceptable acts, while another party prohibits that act because it already prohibits some broader underlying act.

One country legally ████████ ██████ ███████ ██ █ █████████ ██ ██ ████████ ███ ████████ ███████ ███████ ███ ██ ████ ████████████

This describes one country that has prerequisites for performing a certain act, and another country that doesn’t have those prerequisites. But neither of the legal systems we’re interested in have “prerequisites” to allow blackmail. The Canadian and U.S. system says that blackmail is illegal in and of itself, while the Roman system says blackmail is illegal because it’s already more broadly illegal to reveal damaging information about someone for selfish reasons. Neither one says, “You can blackmail as long as you get these approvals first.” And neither one says, “You can blackmail all you like—no prerequisites needed.”

10%

One country makes ██ ███████ ██ ███ ████ ██████ ██ ███████ ███████ ███████ █████ ██ ███████ ██ ███ ████ ██████ ██ ████ ██████ ███ ██████

This describes one country that places fewer restrictions on an activity, and another country that places more restrictions. But both of the legal systems we’re looking at consider blackmail flat-out illegal. The difference between the countries is why blackmail is illegal. (The Canadian and U.S. system says that blackmail is illegal in and of itself, while the Roman system says it’s illegal because it’s already more broadly illegal to reveal damaging information about someone for selfish reasons.) (C) might be an okay analogy for how each system treats free speech (Rome has tighter restrictions on it), but the question asks us for how these systems treat blackmail itself.

One country legally ██████ ████ ██████ ███ ██████████ ███ ███████████ ███████ ███████ ███████ ██████ ██████████ ███ ██████████ ███ ███████████

This describes one country that’s permits more of an activity than another country does. But both of the legal systems we’re looking at consider blackmail flat-out illegal. The difference between the countries is why blackmail is illegal. (The Canadian and U.S. system says that blackmail is illegal in and of itself, while the Roman system says it’s illegal because it’s already more broadly illegal to reveal damaging information about someone for selfish reasons.) (C) might be an okay analogy for how each system treats free speech (Rome has tighter restrictions on it), but the question asks us for how these systems treat blackmail itself.

12%

One country makes ██ ███████ ███ ██████ ██ ███ █████ ███████ ███████ ███ ██ ████ ███ ███████ ██ █████ ███ █████████ ███████ ███ ████████ ███ ██████ ███ ███ █████████

The first country is analogous to Canada and the U.S., which explicitly make blackmail illegal. The second country is analogous to Rome, which doesn’t need to make blackmail explicitly illegal because it already has a broader rule against revealing damaging information about someone for selfish reasons. (Note that while this analogy ignores the paradox aspect of Canadian and U.S. blackmail law, it’s still the best analogy here.)

39%

One country makes ██ ███████ ██ █████ ███████████ ████ ████████████ ███████ ██ ███ ██████ ███████ ███████ ███████ ███████ ████ ███████████ ███ █████ ██████ ███ ██████ ███████ ██████████ ██████ ███████ ████ ██ ████ █████ ██████████

In this scenario, one country says, “You can’t do X,” while another country says, “You can do X, but if you break other rules while doing X, the punishment will be harsher than if you hadn’t been doing X.” The second country isn’t analogous to either of the legal systems we’re looking at. Neither the Canadian and U.S. system nor the Roman system says, “You can blackmail people, but if you break other rules while blackmailing, the punishment will be harsher than if you hadn’t been blackmailing.”

34%

PrepTest 135 - Section 3 - Passage 3 - Question 19

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