I recently wrote in these pages about a conundrum that has long fascinated lawyers and legal scholars, the blackmail paradox (“You’ve Got Blackmail,” Feb. 5). If I know damaging information about you and that information was not acquired under privileged circumstances—that is, I’m not your priest or doctor or lawyer—I can shout that information from the rooftops. What I can’t do is go to you and promise, in exchange for money or something else of value, not to shout it from the rooftops.

How is it that it is illegal to ask for money not to do something that one has a legal right to do or not do?