by Matt Barr

Blackmail

The front story is that

A lefty activist threatened a United States Senator, informing the Senator that should he vote for cloture on Samuel Alito, the activist would out the married Senator as a homosexual. Because of this Senator's vote, the activist intends now to out him at an inopportune time during the Senator's re-election bid this year.

Which is not interesting, on its face, but there are all sorts of things wrong with it when you drill down.

First, does anyone with an IQ greater than room temperature believe that this "lefty activist," if in possession of something that resembles proof of this Republican Senator's extramarital homosexual activity, would in a million years not use it to derail his re-election campaign, regardless of how he voted?

So what's in it for this person to wave around this threat, on a vote that was never going to be close enough where one vote would matter? Suggestions? I got nothin'.

And once you wave around this threat, you guarantee the Senator will not be the only Republican to vote against cloture, since that would accomplish the same thing as outing him would.

So if this person bluffing, stupid, or way smarter than I am and I'm just too dim to understand the genius here?

Meanwhile, this appears to be a crime under District of Columbia law:

(a) A person commits the offense of blackmail, if, with intent to obtain property of another or to cause another to do or refrain from doing any act, that person threatens: ...

(2) To expose a secret or publicize an asserted fact, whether true or false, tending to subject any person to hatred, contempt, or ridicule;

Which is a whole 'nother can of worms. Just because it's the "First" Amendment doesn't mean it's really "important" or anything, I know, but laws against "publiciz[ing] an asserted fact" which is true are fascist and should be stricken from the books.

I know, I know. We punish "insider trading" -- buying and selling shares in public companies based on information the general public should, by law, know but which has been withheld. We don't want everyone who could invest in these companies, which benefits the economy, to spend the time and resources discovering and verifying information on their own. And similarly, we prohibit blackmail because it makes the market inefficient. Even if the "public has a right to know" something about an elected official, coercing that official under threat of revealing the secret to vote one way or another gives disproportionate weight to one person's information. That all sounds keen and I understand the policy, but punishing publicly asserting a fact is still fascist.

Tangent over.

Browse books from Amazon.com:
blackmail First+Amendment