In our last episode,
(Email Removed),
the lovely and talented Matti Lamprhey
broadcast on alt.usage.english:
"Does blackmail involve threats to expose the victim, or is it just a synonym for "extortion"? Some animal-rights protestors have ... a farm which breeds guinea-pigs for the purpose of vivisection, and "blackmail" doesn't seem the right concept to me. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/staffordshire/4285488.stm"
The law is a funny thing. Ha, ha, ha. So I wouldn't dream of touching the issue of what constitutes the crime of blackmail in various jurisdictions.
As a matter of ordinary English, however, it seems to me that "blackmail" involves the threat of public exposure of some information that would be embarrassing or worse. "Extortion" is the threat of physical violence against someone or something. If they threaten to publicise the purpose of the breeding of guinea pigs, that is blackmail. If they threaten to destroy the facility, that is extortion.
The thing about blackmail is that it just about impossible to complain of being blackmailed without accomplishing the threat of the blackmail. You can be very public about being extorted, and that in itself will do you no harm. Perhaps the extortionist will be displeased, but in other cases it is good for the extortionist's business if more people fear him. In protection rackets, the extortionist wants everyone to know that everyone is paying. But if you say you are being blackmailed, you reveal at the very least that you have a secret, and often that it is known you have a secret is sufficient to ensure that it transpires.
Lars Eighner (Email Removed) http://www.larseighner.com/ I don't see posts from or threads started from googlegroups. "Let me have my own way exactly in everything, and a sunnier and pleasanter creature does not exist." Thomas Carlyle