Why is blackmail illegal?
So, you’ve probably seen the story about David Letterman being blackmailled over his affairs. This forms the basis of a thought provoking piece in the New Yorker asking why blackmail is illegal: A final call went out to Walter Block, the libertarian economist. Block believes that blackmail, like smoking, is yucky but should be legal. He only threatened to be a gossipmaybe a screenwriter, he said of Halderman. Screenwriting and gossiping are legal. If its legal to do it, it …