US bill proposes 21st-century privateers to take on cybercrime

Arizona lawmaker David Schweikert just dropped "The Scam Farms Marque and Reprisal Authorization Act of 2025" in August — and it's wild. This bill wants to bring back 18th-century vibes with neo-privateers (yeah, state-sanctioned pirates) to fight cybercriminals threatening the US. Think of it as legalized hacking back, but with a pirate flag.

The bill lets the US president issue letters of marque to private contractors, authorizing them to seize property, detain, or straight-up punish cybercriminals deemed a threat. Targets include crypto theft, pig butchering scams, ransomware attacks, identity theft, unauthorized computer access, password trafficking, and malware deployment. It's like a digital bounty hunter system, but with government backing.

This bill frames these scams as "acts of war" from individuals, orgs, or foreign govs, and if passed, it could reshape cybersecurity and asset seizures big time.

Cybercrime is out of control — over $142M in crypto was lost to hackers in July alone, and 2025's total thefts have already topped $3B. US law enforcement has been seizing crypto from bad actors, and under Trump's exec order from January, that loot could go into a national Bitcoin and crypto reserve, built solely through budget-neutral moves or asset forfeiture.

Recent seizures include over 20 BTC (worth $2.3M+) from the Chaos ransomware group by the FBI, $1M in crypto from BlackSuit, and $2.8M from Ianis Aleksandrovich Antropenko's wallet — all part of the DOJ's crackdown on ransomware ops.