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Blackmail
Blackmail is an act of coercion using the threat of revealing or publicizing either substantially true or false information about a person or people unless certain demands are met. It is often damaging information, and it may be revealed to family members or associates rather than to the general public. These acts can also involve using threats of physical, mental or emotional harm, or of criminal prosecution, against the victim or someone close to the victim. It is normally carried out for personal gain, most commonly of position, money, or property. Blackmail may also be considered a form of extortion. Although the two are generally synonymous, extortion is the taking of personal property by threat of future harm. Blackmail is the use of threat to prevent another from engaging in a lawful occupation and writing libelous letters or letters that provoke a breach of the peace, as well as use of intimidation for purposes of collecting an unpaid debt. In many jurisdictions, bla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Emotional Blackmail
Emotional blackmail and FOG are terms popularized by psychotherapist Susan Forward about controlling people in relationships and the theory that fear, obligation and guilt (FOG) are the transactional dynamics at play between the controller and the person being controlled. Understanding these dynamics is useful to anyone trying to extricate themself from the controlling behavior of another person and deal with their own compulsions to do things that are uncomfortable, undesirable, burdensome, or self-sacrificing for others. General The first documented use of "emotional blackmail" appeared in 1947 in the ''Journal of the National Association of Deans of Women'' in the article "Emotional Blackmail Climate". The term was used to describe one type of problematic classroom control model often used by teachers. Esther Vilar, an Argentine physician and anti-feminist writer, also used the term "emotional blackmail" in the early 1970s to describe a parenting strategy observed among some ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Extortion
Extortion is the practice of obtaining benefit through coercion. In most jurisdictions it is likely to constitute a criminal offence; the bulk of this article deals with such cases. Robbery is the simplest and most common form of extortion, although making unfounded threats in order to obtain an unfair business advantage is also a form of extortion. Extortion is sometimes called the "protection racket" because the racketeers often phrase their demands as payment for "protection" from (real or hypothetical) threats from unspecified other parties; though often, and almost always, such "protection" is simply abstinence of harm from the same party, and such is implied in the "protection" offer. Extortion is commonly practiced by organized crime. In some jurisdictions, actually obtaining the benefit is not required to commit the offense, and making a threat of violence which refers to a requirement of a payment of money or property to halt future violence is sufficient to commit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sextortion
Sextortion (a portmanteau of ''sex'' and ''extortion'') employs non-physical forms of coercion to extort sexual favors from the victim. Sextortion refers to the broad category of sexual exploitation in which abuse of power is the means of coercion, as well as to the category of sexual exploitation in which threatened release of sexual images or information is the means of coercion. As used to describe an abuse of power, sextortion is a form of corruption in which people entrusted with power – such as government officials, judges, educators, law enforcement personnel, and employers – seek to extort sexual favors in exchange for something within their authority to grant or withhold. Examples of such abuses of power include: government officials who request sexual favors to obtain licenses or permits, teachers who trade good grades for sex with students, and employers who make providing sexual favors a condition of obtaining a job. Sextortion also refers to a form of blackmail i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Graymail
Graymail is the threatened revelation of state secrets in order to manipulate legal proceedings. It is distinct from blackmail, which may include threats of revelation against, and manipulation of, any private individual. Graymail is used as a defense tactic, forcing the government to drop a case to avoid revealing national secrets. Graymail can occur in two ways: # To straightforwardly blackmail the government, forcing it to drop the case using the threat that if the trial proceeds the defendant will reveal classified information he or she already knows. # To request use of classified material, e.g. as evidence, in the trial. The defendant speculates that the government will be unwilling to make the material fully available to the case, and that this will raise the possibility, in the eyes of the judge or jury, that the unreleased material might clear the defendant, making it difficult to prove guilt. In the United States, the Classified Information Procedures Act of 1980, also ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nuclear Blackmail
Nuclear blackmail is a form of nuclear strategy in which an aggressor uses the threat of use of nuclear weapons to force an adversary to perform some action or make some concessions. It is a type of extortion that is related to brinkmanship. Effectiveness Nuclear blackmail is usually ineffective against a rational opponent that has or is an ally of a power with assured destruction capability. If the opponent has nuclear weapons, nuclear blackmail becomes a threat of conflict escalation. In that situation if the opponent refuses to respond, one's choices are withdrawal of the threat of nuclear attack, incurring a major loss of prestige (both in domestic and international politics), or carrying out the threat resulting in mutual nuclear destruction. During the Cold War, the explicit threat of nuclear warfare to force an opponent to perform or not to perform an action was rare since most nations of any importance were allies of the Soviet Union or the United States. History In 1950, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abusive Power And Control
Abusive power and control (also controlling behavior and coercive control) is behavior used by an abusive person to gain and/or maintain control over another person. Abusers are commonly motivated by devaluation, personal gain, personal gratification, psychological projection, or the enjoyment of exercising power and control. The victims of this behavior are often subject to psychological, physical, mental, sexual, or financial abuse. Overview Manipulators and abusers may control their victims with a range of tactics, including, but not limited to, positive reinforcement (such as praise, superficial charm, flattery, ingratiation, love bombing), negative reinforcement (taking away aversive tasks or items), intermittent or partial reinforcement, psychological punishment (such as silent treatment, threats, intimidation, emotional blackmail, guilt trips) and traumatic tactics (such as verbal abuse or explosive anger). The vulnerabilities of the victim are exploited, with those ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coercion
Coercion () is compelling a party to act in an involuntary manner by the use of threats, including threats to use force against a party. It involves a set of forceful actions which violate the free will of an individual in order to induce a desired response. These actions may include extortion, blackmail, or even torture and sexual assault. For example, a bully may demand lunch money from a student where refusal results in the student getting beaten. In common law systems, the act of violating a law while under coercion is codified as a duress crime. Coercion can be used as leverage to force the victim to act in a way contrary to their own interests. Coercion can involve not only the infliction of bodily harm, but also psychological abuse (the latter intended to enhance the perceived credibility of the threat). The threat of further harm may also lead to the acquiescence of the person being coerced. The concepts of coercion and persuasion are similar, but various factors ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scottish Marches
Scottish Marches was the term used for the Anglo-Scottish border during the late medieval and early modern eras, characterised by violence and cross-border raids. The Scottish Marches era came to an end during the first decade of the 17th century following the union of the crowns of England and Scotland. History Origins The Marches were first conceived in a treaty between Henry III of England and Alexander III of Scotland in 1249 as an attempt to control the Anglo-Scottish border by providing a buffer zone. On both sides of the Anglo-Scottish border there were the West March, the Middle March and the East March. These regions nearly mirrored each other but there was some overlap between the Scottish and English regions. In the late 13th century Edward I of England appointed the first Lord Warden of the Marches, who was tasked with overseeing these regions and keeping their monarch's domain secure; when it was in their interests they would encourage cross-border raiding, or eve ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Loan Shark
A loan shark is a person who offers loans at extremely high interest rates, has strict terms of collection upon failure, and generally operates outside the law. Description Because loan sharks operate mostly illegally, they cannot reasonably expect to be able to use the legal system to collect such debts, they often resort to enforcing repayment by terms of blackmail and threats of violence. Historically, many moneylenders skirted between legal and criminal activity. In the recent western world, loan sharks have been a prominent feature of the criminal underworld. Loan sharking is not to be confused with predatory lending with extremely high interest rates such as payday or title loans, which is sometimes considered to be "loan sharking" (or, at least, unfavorably compared to loan sharking by critics) regardless of whether it is legal. A key difference between "traditional" loan sharking and predatory lending is that lenders alleged to be engaged in the latter practice are ex ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Greenmail
Greenmail or greenmailing is the action of purchasing enough shares in a firm to challenge a firm's leadership with the threat of a hostile takeover to force the target company to buy the purchased shares back at a premium in order to prevent the potential takeover. The term is a financial neologism, coined in the 1980s, from ''blackmail'' and '' greenback'' as commentators and journalists saw the practice of corporate raiders as attempts by well-financed individuals, or their operating companies, to blackmail a company into handing over money by using the threat of a takeover. The greenmail strategy has evolved since its first practices with ways to counter greenmail, other variations of greenmail, as well as ways to reinforce a greenmail tactic. In the area of mergers and acquisitions, the greenmail payment is made in an attempt to stop the hostile takeover. Tactic Corporate raids occasionally aim to generate large amounts of money by hostile takeovers of large, often underval ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Espionage
Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence) from non-disclosed sources or divulging of the same without the permission of the holder of the information for a tangible benefit. A person who commits espionage is called an ''espionage agent'' or ''spy''. Any individual or spy ring (a cooperating group of spies), in the service of a government, company, criminal organization, or independent operation, can commit espionage. The practice is clandestine, as it is by definition unwelcome. In some circumstances, it may be a legal tool of law enforcement and in others, it may be illegal and punishable by law. Espionage is often part of an institutional effort by a government or commercial concern. However, the term tends to be associated with state spying on potential or actual enemies for military purposes. Spying involving corporations is known as industrial espionage. One of the most effective ways to gath ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
