Society is complicit in Kompromat too. You can't get any leverage from "the petty crimes we unknowingly commit every day" unless everybody is a hypocrite. And I think we've been getting gradually better at unwinding these hypocrisies since the Victorians.
A transition to a world in which your secrets are merely /embarrassing/ has rendered such Kompromat increasingly worthless. Remember when you could destroy a politician with the mere suggestion that they were homosexual? Not today. And it's not just about legalisation. Cannabis possession remains illegal in the US and UK, but it won't do a new politician much harm to admit to having smoked a spliff if they suspect old friends might say as much anyway.
Facebook means that in 5-10 years new politicians and others entering the public spotlight will almost _all_ have their younger days made available in minute detail without a single spook being involved. But just as we've become inured to death and injury from car crashes by the sheer number of such accidents which happen, we'll be inured to petty tales of infidelity, drug abuse, weird fetishes and minor law-breaking from the back histories of new public figures by the sheer volume of such things.
Reforming laws so that we aren't all committing "petty crimes" every day is a worthwhile goal independent of whether shadowy forces intend to use those crimes against us, but meanwhile I think we've (as much by accident as on purpose) concocted an effective antidote to this poison.
Posted Oct 6, 2013 0:16 UTC (Sun) by khim (subscriber, #9252)
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Remember when you could destroy a politician with the mere suggestion that they were homosexual? Not today.
Sure. Today it's more dangerous to be straight. Then either prostitute or maid can be used.
Reforming laws so that we aren't all committing "petty crimes" every day is a worthwhile goal independent of whether shadowy forces intend to use those crimes against us, but meanwhile I think we've (as much by accident as on purpose) concocted an effective antidote to this poison.
Nope. Different societies have different triggers, but if politician need to go there are enough ways to make him go. US uses maids and prostitutes, other countries may use something else. Even many years old incident can be used.
Frankly I find that amusing: Kompromat was used by politicians yesterday, it's still used by politicians today and it'll be used by politicians tomorrow. In USSR, former and future USA or any other place in the world. The exact transgressions which can be used to destroy someone vary but principle remains unchanged: everyone has some kind of kompromat on them and if you have enough friends in press then anyone can be ruined (unless they have equally well connections, that is). It's not matter of size of transgressions, it's matter of perceptions.
Kompromat
Posted Oct 6, 2013 5:09 UTC (Sun) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167)
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It might be a bit premature to think Eliot Spitzer finished on the basis of his having resigned from one political office.
Perhaps it will be more illustrative to consider a real example. Take the Chris Huhne situation. Huhne drove a car too quickly about a decade ago. If the secret police had taken note of this fact and kept it on file to use against him that would be laughable, quite worthless as blackmail material. But instead Huhne received a notice through the normal action of the not-at-all-secret police instructing him to identify the driver at the time of the offence. Huhne decided to ask his wife to sign to say she'd driven the car, thereby avoiding the penalty for speeding himself. Some years later Huhne began cheating on the same wife with a colleague. Perhaps our hypothetical secret police if they had discovered _this_ fact could have attempted to blackmail Huhne, but in the end it became public knowledge anyway, without any appreciable impact on Huhne's political career. The resulting divorce did however give the ex-wife a motive to tell the story about the speeding ticket, and in the process implicate both of them in a serious crime - perverting the course of justice. And _that_ forced him to resign, shortly before they were both sent to jail.
Thom Yorke sings "You do it to yourself, just you, and that's what really hurts". Indeed.
Kompromat
Posted Oct 6, 2013 12:02 UTC (Sun) by khim (subscriber, #9252)
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It might be a bit premature to think Eliot Spitzer finished on the basis of his having resigned from one political office.
That was not the goal. The goal was to remove him from position where he can “rock the boat” prematurely (remember that it happened in the first half of 2008 when he tried to start investigation of Wall Street machinations). It worked beautifully. There was never a need to completely destroy him. In fact politicians prefer to work with people they can control with some form of hidden story thus of course Eliot Spitzer is not finished. If he'll do things which work for the other politicians—he'll be respectable politician again, if he'll try to go against the establishment one more time—he can be made to resign easily. What's not to like?
Perhaps it will be more illustrative to consider a real example. Take the Chris Huhne situation.
Well, let's.
blah-blah-blah
And _that_ forced him to resign, shortly before they were both sent to jail.
…right when he tried to attack media mogul Rupert Murdoch.
Thom Yorke sings "You do it to yourself, just you, and that's what really hurts". Indeed.
Well, sure, people are doing stupid things. All the time. Both small, insignificant people and politicians, too. But what makes these acts important years later? It's your choice what to believe in, but I'm yet to see anyone who's free from any minor transgressions and from observations most of them surface “in the most inappropriate time” for politicians. Often many years after the actual transgression happened. Funny, no? Some people believe that there's god, but me… I think it's more like the “hand of God”.
Kompromat
Posted Oct 7, 2013 1:00 UTC (Mon) by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501)
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The issue of Jacob Frenkel wasn't really that he stole a certain item. This would have been forgiven. The issue was that he did not disclose it (which may have been reasonable), and when the issue was raised, he lied about it.
Kompromat
Posted Oct 6, 2013 12:53 UTC (Sun) by rich0 (guest, #55509)
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Couldn't agree more.
I think that the ultimate solution to Kompromat will be the utter destruction of privacy. Kompromat only can exist when there is information asymmetry. If EVERYBODY knows EVERYTHING about EVERYBODY then it simply can't exist at all.
We should all be mounting cameras on our homes and cars, archiving all footage and publishing it on the internet, and mining the video for facial recognition and number identification and uploading that data to distributed public databases. Then everybody can look up the activities of anybody and we'll all have to come to grips with the fact that everybody does stuff that nobody talks about in public today.
Kompromat
Posted Oct 6, 2013 13:56 UTC (Sun) by khim (subscriber, #9252)
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If EVERYBODY knows EVERYTHING about EVERYBODY then it simply can't exist at all.
But everybody can't know everything! You can only know and remember so much. Which means that even if all information is in the open you still can affect who's transgressions will be discussed in press at what times.
Kompromat
Posted Oct 7, 2013 9:59 UTC (Mon) by etienne (subscriber, #25256)
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> If EVERYBODY knows EVERYTHING about EVERYBODY then it simply can't exist at all.
The problem is "to know", it implies being able to verify the information - googling is not enough, checking only by reading stuff on the net is not enough.
It is too easy to delete or fabricate stuff on the net, it is even not too difficult to identify you and give you only what you "need to read".
Kompromat
Posted Oct 7, 2013 11:15 UTC (Mon) by micka (subscriber, #38720)
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It's not enough, because there are still times when you can do something that's can be hidden and revealed later.
Please also install webcams in your bedroom, toilets and bathroom.
Kompromat
Posted Oct 7, 2013 21:01 UTC (Mon) by nix (subscriber, #2304)
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That works great! I'm sure you won't mind everyone, including all your exes and enemies, knowing your passwords, bank account details and PIN, home address...
Jeremy Clarkson thought just as you did once. He published enough in a national newspaper that someone was able to forge transactions in his name. He recanted.
Kompromat
Posted Oct 7, 2013 13:11 UTC (Mon) by pboddie (guest, #50784)
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You can't get any leverage from "the petty crimes we unknowingly commit every day" unless everybody is a hypocrite.
This is a good point, but it isn't the complete picture.
A transition to a world in which your secrets are merely /embarrassing/ has rendered such Kompromat increasingly worthless. Remember when you could destroy a politician with the mere suggestion that they were homosexual? Not today.
Maybe not in the UK, but in plenty of places in the world you still can.
One thing that has become more widely known in recent years is how some things that perhaps only surface years or decades after they occurred were effectively "public secrets": potentially large numbers of people know about the private details, activities or behaviour of individuals, with people in particular certain circles (media, politics) being especially well informed. Such information isn't immediately published despite its potential for newspaper sales because of the libel risk, but it may very well be the case that the leverage it buys the media is worth more.
And as I'm sure you know very well, political careers in the UK are less likely to be ended by significant political transgressions (lying to parliament about starting wars, for instance) than news that someone has broken a much less significant rule or promise, chosen almost arbitrarily by a bunch of people who have decided that they don't want to play with that person any more.
Facebook extends the "who knew that X was doing Y" audience, but nothing will come of it until people decide that it serves their purpose to use it as leverage. Even if Y is legal and widely seen as acceptable behaviour, it might still be sensitive enough in certain contexts to be considered leverage material some day. As you say, hypocrisy plays a big role, and transparency doesn't always protect even the innocent from its effects.
Kompromat
Posted Oct 7, 2013 20:12 UTC (Mon) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313)
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don't forget the situation where changing definitions of what's "socially acceptable" mean that something that was no big deal 50 years ago is now grounds for political lynching.
Kompromat
Posted Oct 7, 2013 23:50 UTC (Mon) by pboddie (guest, #50784)
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Yes, tolerance cuts both ways. Also, societies can progress and regress. One cannot assume that something at one point in time might be considered acceptable in the future. Consider how even well-regarded historical figures can have aspects of their lives that justifiably offend sensibilities today.
