Yeah, interesting, eh? Drake was a privateer, wound up taking some time out of his day spent lawn bowling to go to the battle with the Armada, organized the fire ships attack which started the process of destroying command and control. I think there’s a topic around here on how Drake had gotten the idea when something like it was done to him during a raid on a Spanish or Portuguese port. :’)
It would be interesting to see if a modern day Letter of Marque could be devised to allow private attack on Somali pirates, including confiscating their loot/bank accounts. Could clean the problem up very quickly.
I suppose the bleats from the "human rights" crowd, UN and EU would never allow it.