Congressman proposes bringing back letters of marque for cyber privateers It's been more than 200 years since the United States issued a letter of marque allowing privateers to attack the vessels of foreign nations, but those letters may return to empower cyber operators if a bill introduced in Congress actually manages to pass. Arizona Republican David Schweikert introduced the Scam Farms Marque …
@VoiceOfTruth: “Great. And the rest of the world can hack the USA for stealing our data. The USA really is the shit hole of the world. Not remotely a democracy or even civilised. Treat it as such.”
Then why are so many from the democratic world so desperate to get in?
The text of the bill gives the President the authority to issue letters of marque and reprisal against anyone they determine "is a member of a criminal enterprise or any conspirator associated with an enterprise involved in cybercrime who is responsible for an act of aggression against the United States."
Cos in no way will Trump abuse that power to go after people who annoy his thin orange skin, he already tried to make out protests as 'insurrection' so he can call up the national guard without involving state governors.
He’s not shown a willingness to abuse power, has he? Declaring emergency after emergency. Having a 70 year balance of trade as a pressing and immediate crisis was unremarked upon by the sycophants.
His humiliation rituals of other world leaders, especially the European poodles, don’t speak to a very balanced and self-confident person.
No chance this clown will abuse this at all.
..."nor has Schweikert's team heard whether the President would support the measure."
My advice would be - don't do it, don't poke the bear in the eye. This will end up like putting the bounty on the shark in Jaws, lots of small groups acting like the keystone cyber cops floundering around for a bit of bounty.
Take the "concerned citizens" who "patrol" the border and expect to see them, in their hordes of self-proclaimed pay-tree-ot rednecks who knows all about com-pew-ters 'cos they gots some scripts from 'Ike's young'uns that'll scramble those commie hard drives, fer sure, lining up to get their Letters of Marque so's they kin boast theys bin told to do this great wurk by the prez-ee-dent hisself. Local Sheriff caint stop 'em.
Now, we's couldna find no furriners, theys all be hidin', but Ah sees sum libruls on yonder website.
To be fair there are quite a few furries in IT and infosec (a geeky internet subculture having jobs involving computers, shocking I know), and given that they have a rather high disdain for things like crypto and AI, setting them loose on the cybercrims might actually prove pretty effective...
Well, they're missing a trick. This letters of marque bollocks would apply to techno ne'r do wells outside of prison. If instead they offered it as a cushy alternative to hard labour to those inside clink, then (a) cyber crims who have already been caught can do something with those skills, and (b) a tiny proportion of the traditional hard cases would learn themselves cyber warfare. Offer them a deal - you keep 10% of any Russian money you can steal and get it tax free when you leave prison, we keep the other 90%. I'll reckon that's a better pay rate than sewing mailbags or breaking rocks.
Obviously when they're out then there's some downside risks, but by that time you already know who they are and what skills they have, making monitoring them easier.
He wouldn't use it to go after criminal gangs. He'd want it to go after "enemies" meaning countries that have leaders he doesn't like, or do mean things like refuse to become the 51st state. He'd love to have another way to grift crypto, by making ransomware gangs cut him in for a share to avoid letters of marque be issued against them.
Fortunately it is (probably) just performative dick sucking, like the bills to put his face on Mount Rushmore, or create a $250 bill with him on it, or rename airports for him etc. that are coming from a few of the most spineless and useless republicans in the house.
'Letters of marque were popular in the age of sail, with many eventual pirates getting their starts as privateers working for the US, UK, France, Spain, and other naval powers of the era.'
Letting vigilantes perfect their cyber attack skills, assuming they'll only ever be used against *our* enemies. Yeah, that'll never come back to bite us in the ass.
'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.' And the problem isn't even that we can't remember the past, it's that modern politicians purposefully choose to ignore it (and a great many other things of import) for expediency, publicity, and power.
Civilized nations are signatories.
Guess the identity of the standout non-signatory.
But I don't suppose civilized could be applied either.
If a nation recognises the legitimacy of its own privateers it is obliged to recognise the legitimacy of those of its adversaries. Or more to point the jurisdictions of third parties will apply that equivalence when a nation seeks the rendition of an adversary's privateer (and hopefully employ the yard-arm for both.)
Curiously there have been a few legislative attempts in last few decades to have the US issue letters of marque (once notably after 9/11) none were adopted presumably because of the international legal shit storm they would have caused.
Today provoking international shit storms is the preferred foreign policy choice of this administration.
Civilized nations are signatories.Guess the identity of the standout non-signatory.
The Congresscritter could also do with a history lesson..
The US last issued letters of marque during the war of 1812, giving privateers the right to wage war against British vessels.
Schweikert said. "This legislation allows us to effectively engage these criminals and bring accountability and restitution to the digital battlefield by leveraging the same constitutional mechanism that once helped secure our nation's maritime interests."
Except 1812 didn't exactly secure US maritime interests after the Crown went 'Challenge accepted!' and 'Leave Canada alone!', took a bit of a diversion from the usual past time of stomping the French and kinda burned Washington. Those pesky colonials really shouldn't have shot Ross's horse.
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