I was curious about the fact that there seems to have been no subsequent news about the effort to blackmail Mitt Romney about his past tax returns.
I wrote about the initial claim by a group that they had got into the offices of the accounting firm Pricewaterhouse Coopers and obtained Romney’s past tax returns and were going to publicly release them unless they got a ransom of one million dollars in bitcoins by September 28.
Naturally, this is being investigated (apparently by the Secret Service) but there have been no updates from any of the parties concerned: the Romney camp (understandably), the blackmailers, or the investigators.
Which raises the interesting question: If September 28 comes with no revelations, how will we distinguish whether there was nothing there or whether a ransom was secretly paid by the Romney camp or, even more troubling, by a wealthy individual to get the information, someone who would now have a major hold over him if he should become president?
While thinking about this, it struck me that I don’t understand the laws surrounding blackmail or extortion when the threat is the release of information as opposed to physical violence. If it is not in general a crime to exchange information for money, why is it a crime to not release information for money? Note that the issue of whether the information is true or defamatory or causes harm is a separate one from that of its release. After all, Romney can hardly argue that his legal tax returns are defamatory although they may cause him political harm.
Matt Yglesias speculates that since 2009 was the year that the IRS gave an amnesty to people to declare their previously secret Swiss bank accounts without fear of prosecution, this may be why Romney is refusing to release his 2009 and earlier returns. (The comments to that post make for interesting reading, especially the first one by someone named slate22.)
According to this Wikipedia article (citations and links removed):
From a libertarian perspective, blackmail is not always considered to be something that should be treated as a crime. Some libertarians point out that it is licit (in the United States at this moment in time) to gossip about someone else’s secret, to threaten to publicly reveal such information, and to ask a person for money, but it is illegal to combine the threat with the request for money. They say this raises the question, “Why do two rights make a wrong?”
Furthermore, if a third party were to pay the ransom and get the Romney tax returns, would that person be guilty of a crime?
Whatever the legalities, Bill Allison of The Sunlight Foundation examines the disturbing possibilities that can arise in an era of secret political slush funds when a politician has a big secret.
“From a libertarian perspective?” WTF?! Why is the “libertarian perspective” of any interest in a publication that’s supposed to be about facts and definitions? Does Wikipedia also have the “flat-Earthers’ perspective” on geography? Or the “neo-nazi perspective” on African history? Seriously, why does an encyclopedia have to have different fringe-groups’ “perspective” on such an old and well-known concept as “blackmail?”
As for whether this incident is a crime, I’d say that the initial act of hacking into PWC’s files is a crime (theft, invasion of privacy, computer crime); and probably any sale, giveaway, or threatened/promised sale or giveaway of stolen information would also be a crime. And if they don’t sell or give that stolen information to anyone else, they’re still guilty of the above-mentioned crimes (unless, of course, the whole thing is a hoax, in which case they’re guilty of fraud if they collect money by pretending to have something they don’t have).
On the other hand, Mitt might have dipped into his pocket change and bought the info himself.
I just saw a news item saying Mutt had released his tax returns.
It’s not. But a loud and obnoxious contingent of Wikipedians are libertarians. Thankfully they usually bicker amongst themselves, but occasionally their shit leaks into the rest of the ‘pedia. I’m sorry; there’s not much we (the adminship) can do about it.
That was just the 2011 returns which he had already said he would do. He paid 13.9% of his income as federal income taxes which turns out to be identical to his 2010 returns.
His accounting firm PwC has released a ‘summary’ of his returns from 1990 to 2010 but not the returns themselves.
a wealthy individual to get the information, someone who would now have a major hold over him if he should become president?
Isn’t he already a wholly-owned subsidiary?
Shouldn’t that be enough unless the summaries are fabricated? While I know the big accounting firms are not held in as high esteem as they used to be, would PwC ever really want to get involved with such a falsification?
So, from a “libertarian persepctive,” if something is legal that means it’s right?
More speculation. Ho hum. No one has any evidence that this particular scenario is actually true.
.
However, ponder this: Romney and his advisors know that this sort of speculation is running rampant, and they have made a decision that releasing his tax returns would be worse than letting the speculation run wild. So whatever they’re hiding, it must actually be pretty bad.
they have made a decision that releasing his tax returns would be worse than letting the speculation run wild. So whatever they’re hiding, it must actually be pretty bad.
I have a theory about that. They’re preparing a “zinger” for the debates. Expecting that the topic of his taxes will come up, Romney is going to slam down his returns for the last decade, all of which show that he has never paid less, retroactively, than 13.97% (“Romney: nearly paid 14% taxes!”) and that’ll show all those bad-mouthers who’ve been thinking he cheated! Ha!
Sure, just like Ayn collecting collectivist SocSec and Medicare.
Problems: (1) Subtlety is not Willard’s strong suit; (2) the Dems have thought of this too (haven’t they?).
Don’t blackmailers have access to photocopiers?
“Two wrongs don’t make a right” is a common English expression, and the wording of that line in the Wikipedia article appears to be intended to evoke that expression to readers, not to make a specific point about the relationship between legality and morality.
Indeed, libertarianism generally advocates that an act be legal unless it directly violates another’s rights. That’s a pretty narrow criterion, meaning that most libertarians would argue that many things should be legal even if they aren’t morally “right.”