PrepTest 135, Section 3, Question 16

Working the answers

• A
  Correct

  A specifically invokes free speech to protect the separate disclosure. B doesn't start with comparable protection for that harmful disclosure: truth alone doesn't establish permission to make it. The two-legal-acts starting point therefore falls away, and with it this particular paradox. This does not require the much broader claim that Romans had no speech protections of any kind.

• B

  Having no special category doesn't mean blackmail was permitted, much less that it happened more often. B explains how broader restrictions addressed the conduct. Neither author gives a rate of blackmail to compare.

• C

  We have a narrow comparison about disclosures, not an inventory of freedoms. We don't know how these systems compare on property, movement, or other rights. One difference cannot establish this general ranking.

• D

  This assigns B's focus on reputational harm to A's theory. A locates the wrong in using a third party's leverage for the blackmailer's benefit.

• E

  A's example depends on the state's interest in learning about a crime. The blackmailer uses that interest to make a threat. Different rules protecting disclosure don't mean Canadian and U.S. law fail to recognize the government's interest in information.