I read through this TSD thread and didn’t get the answer I was looking for.
Here’s the scenario:
You work for an activist group dedicated to exposing corporate unethical behavior. You know a specific company is doing very unethical things, that if known by the public would force them to change or even possibly destroy their business. You can’t prove it outright, but you do have evidence tying a specific individual within that corporation to unethical behavior; enough that it would get them fired easily.
But releasing this information would likely just ruin that one person’s career and wouldn’t really affect the corporation much. So you decide to contact the person on whom you have that evidence and make them an offer: either they step forward and reveal the greater corporate unethical behavior as a whistleblower, or you will release your evidence to the media and thus ruin their career.
Is this considered blackmail/extortion, legally? Or is this a legal way of forcing a someone to come forward?
I’m not asking about the ethics of it per se, but the legality of it.
IANAL, but it sounds like blackmail to me pure and simple. If you don’t do X, I will do Y which will hurt you. I don’t think the greater good really plays into it… but IANAL.
Just because no DA in their right mind would prosecute someone for chaining their pet alligator to a fire hydrant in Michigan doesn’t mean it’s legal to chain a pet alligator to a fire hydrant in Michigan … it isn’t … so don’t … please …
I think Ornery Bob has the right of it in this OP … the OP linked to in this OP is an interesting case though … is it blackmail if the offer of money comes without a threat?
Unless he’s got some whistleblower law protection that may not even pay the lawyer’s fees he needs to get it then you’re not offering him any incentive. He’s going to lose his job if he comes forward himself or if you expose him. So if this was real you’d have to figure out some way he can out of this better off and inform him of that or hire a lawyer to make a legal contract. But don’t threaten him.
In another another Bill Cosby incident a few years ago a young woman claiming to be his daughter made some kind of demand on him, I think it was an exchange of money for her to remain silent about being his daughter. He contacted the police, she was charged with a crime. However, the news noted several times with the aid of prominent news commentator attorneys that she could have done the same thing legally through a lawyer. It was just her trying to coerce him directly that made it a crime.
ETA: Here’s the story about Autumn Jackson, Bill Cosby’s alleged daughter. And boy did she miss the boat, she threatened to ruin his reputation by coming forward, that’s a worthless threat now. And her mother claims she’s one of the women Cosby drugged and raped resulting in the conception of Autumn.