David DiMolfetta,
The Trump administration and industry partners have discussed whether privateering contracts — once used to deputize pirate ships — could offer inspiration for authorizing private sector hacking operations against China, though many say the 18th-century tool wouldn’t cleanly map onto modern cyber warfare.
The authority stems from a historically maritime legal mechanism, known as a letter of marque, that allowed privately owned ships to lawfully attack other vessels. Today, that authorization would aim to give the U.S. a better fighting chance against China and other nation-state adversaries.
In recent closed-door discussions, industry chiefs and administration officials have raised the idea of privateering contracts and “letters of marque” that could grant private cybersecurity and tech firms legal authority to launch cyberattacks, according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to freely discuss the sensitive deliberations.
But the high-level view among U.S. officials is that an old-world maritime authority is unlikely to be directly used in cyberspace. A more modern, tailored version of these authorizations is more likely to surface as the Trump administration seeks to define a desired path forward, one of the people said.
“The general consensus from [U.S. government] officials on the topic is that we aren’t going to apply a 200 year-old [privateering] authority to the cyber domain,” said the person. “However, there is a standing question and ongoing debate regarding what modern authorities and authorizations are required by various cybersecurity and tech industry organizations to better enable the defense of the United States.”
Letters of marque played a major role during the War of 1812, when the U.S. government issued them to private ship-owners to capture British vessels. And even further back, they were used to convert pirates into privateers, acting on behalf of their sponsoring governments to raid enemy ships.
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