Should President Donald Trump be able to deputise private US companies to go after cyber criminals around the world?
Global cyber crime, digital scams and hacking are on the rise, so politicians are moving to grant cybersecurity companies the ability to hunt down perpetrators.
The Thai military on Monday said it had recovered a trove of evidence of transnational fraud from a Cambodian farm seized during clashes last year. The compound, according to the military, housed thousands of labourers who were forced to engage in international scams or face punishment.
A bill introduced in the US Congress last year is seeking to prevent that by authorising the president to issue “letters of marque and reprisal” to private companies.
Letters of marque historically authorise private ships to attack and capture enemy vessels during wartime. The US last used letters of marque in the War of 1812 against Britain.
The proposed legislation, introduced in August by Republican Representative David Schweikert, takes aim at so-called scam farms.
Almost everyone with a mobile phone has received phishing attempts or scam calls, and many times these attempts to gain sensitive personal or financial information come from scam farms. The farms, many in South-east Asia, often operate using coerced or even slave labour, with the UN reporting hundreds of thousands of people have been trafficked to the centres.
Mr Schweikert's bill defines scam farms' efforts to defraud Americans as “acts of war”.
The World Economic Forum's 2026 Global Cybersecurity Outlook report said that threats were growing and vulnerabilities intensifying at an “unprecedented pace”.
The legislation has generated a lot of buzz in the tech community.
“In effect, the US would get more capability for less,” Bruce Payne, who builds cybersecurity software, told The National. Mr Payne said that despite US efforts to thwart cyber attacks and scams, criminals show no sign of slowing down.
“The scammers are targeting the most vulnerable of our population and pilfering billions of dollars each year. Each dollar that is stolen by these scammers often has to be subsidised by others in the country.”
Mr Payne compared the legislation to “bug bounty” programmes that make it easier to identify problems with software.
Others have said that giving the US president the power to issue letters of marque and reprisal would be akin to empowering naval privateers.
“Although the federal government has not issued letters of marque since the War of 1812, an unusual example occurred during World War II, when a Goodyear blimp was commissioned for anti-submarine patrols off the California coast,” a statement from Mr Schweikert reads.
“The proposed legislation allows the executive branch to issue limited, targeted commissions to disrupt these foreign cybercriminal enterprises.”
Yet the bill, if passed, could generate backlash from nations who feel their sovereignty is being breached by private US cybersecurity companies.
The bold strategy to stop cyber crime could be viewed as allowing private businesses to act as international cyber law enforcement.
Proponents of the bill, however, say it simply levels the playing field.
“The opposition seems to be concerned primarily with people going rogue or hitting the wrong targets, but people go rogue all the time already,” Mr Payne said.
He said the details of the bill provide a blueprint for government regulation that would prevent a worst-case scenario. He also said it would allow for smaller companies to compete for lucrative government cybersecurity contracts against larger firms.
“I see these letters of marque as that same mechanism for a new line of business,” he said.
