A Republican congressman from Arizona is proposing reprising a centuries-old practice dating back to the age of pirates to combat modern-day cybercriminals who threaten the national and economic security of the United States.
Representative David Schweikert this month introduced a bill that would allow the use of cyber privateers to take on threat groups and cyberscam farms that are responsible for large and growing numbers of romance, “pig butchering,” and other scams that target victims in the United States and other countries.
Schweikert introduced the Scam Farms Marque and Reprisal Authorization Act of 2025 in the House August 15, saying in a statement that the “criminal syndicates backed by foreign governments are using cyberspace to prey on American seniors, steal intellectual property, and undermine national security. Our current tools are failing to keep pace.”
He added that “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.”
An Old Way to Combat Modern Threats
Countries in the Age of Sail in the late 1700s and early 1800s would issue letters of marque to private ships to capture enemy vessels and their property during times of war. Nations like the United States, the UK, Spain, France, and Portugal used such privateers, fueling the growth of piracy as the lines between warfare and raids blurred.
“During the French and Indian War, the American Revolution, and the quasi-war with France, these commissions played a central role in maritime defense,” according to the statement from Schweikert’s office. “The Articles of Confederation explicitly granted Congress this power – a provision carried forward into the Constitution.”
It noted that the U.S. government last issued letters of marque during the War of 1812, adding that a Goodyear blimp was used to patrol for submarines off the California coast during World War II.
Schweikert in his statement noted that Congress still has the authority to issue letters of marque and reprisal. Given the scope of today’s cyberthreat landscape, the government could lean on private cybersecurity professionals to push back against nation-state and financially motivated bad actors running ransomware and other cyberattacks, according to the congressman.
Licensed Cyber Privateers
His bill would give U.S. presidents the power to issue these modern letters of marque, creating licensed “cyber privateers” that would have the authority – under federal oversight – to investigate cyberattacks launched against the United States and its citizens by foreign cybercriminal organizations, prevent future incidents, recover stolen assets, and defend critical infrastructure like water systems and telecommunications networks.
To outline the problem, he pointed to FBI statistics that found that U.S. citizens in 2024 filed more than 859,000 complaints about scams that added up to $16 billion in losses, a 33% increase from the previous year. According to the agency’s 2024 Internet Crime Report, Americans older than 60 lost almost $5 billion in financial scams.
The Ongoing Threat of Cyberscam Farms
In the middle of such cybercrimes are the rising number of cyberscam farms, large operations that litter Southeast Asia in such countries as Laos and Myanmar, where massive numbers of people, usually held in captivity, are forced to participate in romance scams, pig-butchering operations, investment cons, and similar schemes.
Authorities in Cambodia in July arrested more than 1,000 people involved in running such cyberscam operations throughout that country.
The UN estimates that hundreds of thousands of people have been enslaved throughout Southeast Asia to work in these scam mills, which generate as much as $40 billion in profit.
Many of the people held in these sprawling remote scam compounds are lured via false promises of good jobs, but then are captured and held against their will under threats of extortion, torture, or death, according to international groups like the United Nations and Amnesty International.
An Expanding Problem
In late June, Interpol noted that international crime syndicates are expanding the reach of these scam compounds beyond Asia and into other parts of the world, such as Africa, Russia, Central and South America, and the United States.
The UN echoed the Interpol findings, noting in a report in April that Nigeria has become a hotspot for romance, cryptocurrency, and other cyberscams and that other countries – such as Brazil and Peru – also are growing hubs for such operations.
“This reflects both a natural expansion as the industry grows and seeks new ways and places to do business, but also a hedging against future risks should disruption continue and intensify in Southeast Asia,” Benedikt Hofmann, UNODC’s acting regional representative for the UN’s Office on Drugs and Crime for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, said in a statement to the Associated Press.
