EXCLUSIVE: Trump Could Hire Digital ‘Privateers’ To Combat Cyber Crime Thanks To Mike Lee’s New Bill
Republican Utah Sen. Mike Lee’s latest bill would allow online privateers to hack cybercriminals and foreign adversaries at the president’s direction, the Daily Caller learned.
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Lee’s legislation, dubbed the Cyber Letters of Marque and Reprisal Act, would authorize the president to direct online privateers to coordinate cyber attacks, seize stolen assets, and disrupt the operations of American adversaries and criminal organizations, according to the bill text obtained exclusively by the Caller.
Any seized funds or assets retrieved will be shared between the federal government and the digital privateer responsible for the operation. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Mike Lee Explains How LBJ Broke A Filibuster And What It Means For The SAVE America Act)
“My legislation allows American digital privateers to raid cartels, cybercriminals, and foreign adversaries, disrupting their operations and seizing their assets,” Lee told the Caller. “This is the ultimate in white hat hacking: stealing from America’s enemies at the direction of the President, and splitting the profits with the federal government.”
Lee’s bill says that Americans lose billions of dollars every year to “crypto-enabled scams, fraud, ransomware, hacking, and theft,” noting that seniors are “disproportionately harmed” by these scams.
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Many of these cybercrimes are coordinated by foreign adversaries, relying on digital assets to “steal, launder, and move funds at global scale, financing ransomware attacks, sanctions evasion, weapons proliferation, terrorism, and other threats to United States national security.”
Republican Tennessee Rep. Tim Burchett is co-leading the bill in the House, saying “widespread cybercrime has become an existential threat to our national security.”
“Allowing private operators to aid the federal government in combating these crimes will strengthen our ability to defend the United States against terrorism,” Burchett told the Caller.
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