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Climate Scientists Ask For Help Fighting Somali Pirates

Posted by samzenpus on Sunday July 17, 2011 @09:19AM from the government-ninjas dept.

thebchuckster writes "Scientists are seeking the help of the Australian and US navies to repel Somali pirates who are threatening one of the world's key climate monitoring programs. They hope to deploy about 20 robotic instruments in a no-go area north of Mauritius. The instruments, which record ocean heat and salinity patterns, are programmed to submerge and eventually resurface to upload their data to satellites."

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Re:Easy solution by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2011-07-17 10:13 · Score: 5, Insightful

'Letter of Marque and Reprisal'.

Given that the pirates are using any old junk to mount their attacks, I'm guessing that there would be no economic incentive to hunt them down under the historical mechanism of condemnation and sale. Some sort of bounty-based alternative, in addition to the cost, would amount to offering to pay anybody who can come up with a few rusty Kalashnikovs and a boat full of dead Somalis. What could possibly go wrong?