Secret police blackmail methods predate the modern era and span multiple national traditions.

Evidence

The criminal methods of the secret police are of course no monopoly of the French tradition. In Austria, for example, the feared political police under Maria Theresa was organized by Kaunitz from the cadres of the so-called “chastity commissars” who used to live by blackmail. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 2796

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader chapter topic of the secret police’s financial self-funding through corruption and blackmail — a mechanism of totalitarian state formation.