Leibowitz on Trade: Cybercrime, Piracy and Letters of Marque

Many of you may have sat, like me, in a line to get gasoline this week. It brought back memories of the Arab Oil Embargo of 1973 and the Iranian boycott of 1979. This time, a gasoline pipeline supplying about half of that product to the eastern United States was closed, allegedly due to a cyberattack by criminals based in Russia (or somewhere). Rumors abounded that Colonial Pipeline paid millions of dollars in ransom to recover their computer systems. In the meantime, the pipeline was shut down because the company could not calculate how much gasoline was delivered and to whom.

Cybercrime is a large and growing problem and, at least publicly, no government has announced a plan to combat it effectively. This week, proposals began to appear suggesting that an old tactic, granting “letters of marque and reprisal,” should be resurrected to combat cyber piracy of the kind that snagged Colonial Pipeline.