Are the Feds watching Facebook and other social networking sites? Did the STASI keep tabs on East German citizens? I find it amusing to see people, especially those who are naïve about the way the world works, shocked that intelligence agencies might actually monitor information which they so graciously posted for all the world to see (gasp). Perhaps now they will receive a first hand lesson in why some of us consciously refuse to participate in social networking sites.
but here in the US when you see FBI warnings before a movie stating you'll be fined $150,000 and 10 years in a PMITA prison... I'd rather just keep my mouth shut and let someone who actually got caught challenge the system.
In the United States, where sentences are harsher, fines larger, and prisons are operated as for-profit growth industries, this is probably a wise decision on your part.
Normally I don't reply to AC but this guy really is a pinhead and someone has to call him out so here it is:
These Somalis are more like Americans than I think you realize.
No more like us than like you or anyone else.
Both Somalis and Americans live in a nation where manufacturing jobs are now non-existent.
This simply demonstrates your ignorance. The United States still employs a substantial number people in manufacturing and although the numbers are less than they used to be that is due to increased automation and other efficiencies and lower costs (but not necessarily better efficiency) from off shoring. For example, in India I have heard of some fancy hotels hiring twenty or more people with scissors to cut the lawn by hand because that is cheaper than using a gasoline powered mower. Cheaper? yes. More efficient? hardly.
Americans are more productive per worker and so fewer are needed when combined with automation. Now, it still might be cheaper to produce some things in China, or India, or some other developing economy but that just means that it is cheaper. It does not mean that it is more efficient, that it pollutes less, or even that the quality is the same.
Both Somalis and Americans live in a nation where education is considered a worthless pursuit.
The uneducated might think so, but the rest of us know better. If you find yourself among the former, I highly recommend joining the latter.
Both Somalis and Americans have an utter love for weapons, destruction and killing.
Americans have a long history of refusing to pay ransom to pirates and attacking their bases of operation. In fact, our United States Navy was founded to deal with the Barbary Pirates. Experience in that case, as in others, has shown that the only effective way to deal with organized piracy is to attack and subdue their land bases of operation. We do not kill merely for pleasure or because we enjoy killing, we are not barbarians after all; but neither can we permit piracy to continue unchecked and unchallenged indefinitely. In the short run that means neutralizing the pirate bases, even if a few Somali civilians are killed in the process.
Both Somalis and Americans address their own lack of ability to produce anything of value by attacking others, and taking their resources (oil from Iraq, for instance).
Yes, and the world is secretly controlled by the illuminati, the tri-lateral commission, and the free masons right? Conspiracy theories are fun, but they don't improve one's understanding of the world; they just propagate ignorance and superstition.
You guys actually have a lot in common. You'd probably be pretty good friends with a Somali pirate. You seem to share their lust for violence and the murder of innocent civilians.
Most nations and peoples would actually prefer to ignore the Somalis, but is their own persistent use of violence that compels us to respond in kind. I don't like it when civilians and non-combatants are killed, but that must not prevent us from acting when some group initiates violence against us. We live in the real world with real world problems and messy and imperfect solutions. The pacifists who take the, "not one innocent civilian killed" position are both foolish and naive.
Hmmm...Perhaps we could "invest" a couple of helfire missiles for their next trading session, they really "bring down the house" as they say. Seriously though, now we have women and non-combatants supplying weapons to the pirates. Can someone else please explain why the navies of the world haven't parked offshore and leveled the pirate towns with naval artillery? Its too bad that the United States doesn't keep those Iowa class battleships on the active registry anymore, a few hours of shelling from one of those and any pirate town would be a smoking ruin.
We also, apparently, have enough orthodox, classic right wingers that we voted down legalizing gay marriage recently
It was voted down because the left failed to take into account that a large percentage of the immigrants now living in California come from Mexico and Latin America where Catholicism, which views marriage as a sacrament and takes a dim view on homosexuality, is very strongly entrenched. So while these immigrants are typically a reliable constituency for the left, they are NOT liberal when it comes to issues of sexuality or marriage. The left miscalculated their support for gay marriage in California because they took those immigrants' votes for granted. In fact, it is likely that gay marriage will not happen any time soon in California because the number of immigrants from the aforementioned countries, as a percentage of the population, is only going to increase in the years to come.
So lets recap here: really fast, can handle any data from any time, and a complete compendium of all human knowledge. How much did you say was budgeted for this system again? If you have a practically unlimited budget then such a system might be possible, but if you want to get it done before some time next century and at a reasonable price there have to be compromises.
While JavaScript has a good thing going with the web scripting niche, it has a long road to catch up with established players in the heavyweight "everything and the kitchen sink" language category currently filled by C# and Java. It is very difficult to see mainstream platform developers selecting JavaScript as their general purpose language in favor of C#, Java, or even C or objective C (for the Linux and Mac developers respectively). JavaScript would do better to reduce its footprint and burnish its credentials as a web scripting language because that is what we need it to be; after all, we already have good languages in the general purpose category that are NOT suitable for web scripting.
As a practical matter, real, honest-to-god oldschool "starving kids in ${poor country}" don't really exist anymore. At least, not for reasons that have anything whatsoever to do with arable land, drought, famine, or vermin.
This is true and the primary reason for that is poor government. African governments fail to create even the basic legal framework and proper enforcement necessary to achieve sustained economic growth. Without proper laws that protect private property and reasonably competent and non-corrupt enforcement there can be no real credit or private lending. Without credit and private lending it is difficult or impossible to engage in any large scale economic activity. In short, Africa is poor and hungry because African governments, with a few notable exceptions, have largely failed their peoples.
Finally, to add insult to injury, the vast amounts of foreign aid, and particularly food aid, serve to prevent African farmers from ever stepping onto the ladder of economic growth. Why bust your butt to bring a crop to market when every season there are trucks driving up and dropping sacks of "USA Wheat" in the marketplace for ten times less than it costs you to produce it? The African farmers are driven out of business by artificially cheap farm imports sent as "foreign aid" in the name of "helping the starving people". In the long run, nobody but farmers in wealthy nations benefits from farm subsidies. Incidentally, this is also why the trade talks generally go nowhere. The third world countries form a block to demand an end to farm subsidies while first world diplomats have been specifically instructed by their governments not to give an inch on subsidies.
I am surprised that so many Slashdot users are actually waiting on ads. Why bother with them at all when you can run AdBlock, NoScript, and Flashblock to remove them? I have absolutely no qualms about doing this; the advertisers don't respect us so why should we respect them? Internet ads are for neophytes and chumps, not those with the knowledge and skill to evade them.
Also, the crews of all boats, also American, are kept on their own ships. Those guys are in it for the money, not religion. Nobody gets beheaded
That is not correct. Consider that the pirates are in it for the money, on that we are agreed? Two things are true for anyone holding Americans hostage:
The United States government has a well known and long standing policy of NOT paying ransom to hijackers, kidnappers, or pirates. This policy goes all the way back to the days of the Barbary Corsairs when America decided, based upon experience, that paying ransom was counter-productive to our long term interests.
Anyone who holds Americans hostage will become an immediate target for "special attention" by the United States government, including rescue teams of Navy SEALs, drone monitoring or attacks, etc. Holding Americans hostage is a dangerous business as the Somali pirates who attempted to ransom the captain of the Maersk Alabama found out.
So, if you are a pirate who is only concerned with money, two things are true:
The United States government will not pay ransom under any circumstances and holding Americans hostage is dangerous.
The Islamic militias (aka Al-Shabab) will pay a bounty for any Americans turned over into their custody.
The pirates are already in a de-facto state of war with the civilized nations of this planet (a war which they started) and holding Americans hostage poses risk of life and limb to them. They would rather cash out by turning hostages over to the militias (who are religiously motivated terrorists that behead captives for ideological reasons) than risk protracted and ultimately fruitless negotiations with the United States government.
Exactly that very same reason is why we don't have terrorism,
It is not the same because the motivations are different. If your motivation is money and not, for example, a religious belief in the afterlife then death matters because you cannot spend money when you are dead. The Somali pirates are essentially motivated by money and they care about saving their own skins to spend it. We don't see them making ideological speeches or press communiques during the hostage negotiations. Such people can be deterred by substantial probability of death whereas someone who wants and expects to be killed cannot; however, those who do not care about death are generally also the types who are not essentially motivated by money (i.e. for them it would be a means to an end but not the end).
That just doesn't work, we got to work out how to improve the country and the region so there are better options than becoming a pirate.
They got their own country into the mess they are in, let them get themselves out of it. It is only our problem in so far as it effects us. Therefore, we should take what steps we can, within reason, to ensure that it doesn't effect us, but another nation-building exercise in Somalia would be misguided; they aren't worth it.
The following is taken from a recent article on the question of arming merchant ships:
"It's something that could actually stoke up the attacks, take the attacks to a higher level," said Andrew Linington of London-based Nautilus International, a union that represents 24,000 mariners, most of whom work on British- or Dutch-registered ships. But internal polling among Nautilus members has indicated a "hardening of attitudes" in recent months, with more calling for armed protection, Linington said.
Furthermore, merchant ships weren't really protected by being armed to any significant degree, they were ESCORTED by actual warships.
Armament in those days usually consisted of at least one 5 inch or so surplus deck gun (usually of WWI vintage) in addition to the convoy support. A return to a convoy system has also been discussed from time to time. Another option would be arming specific ships as decoys (aka Q-Ships) and then operating those in the areas where pirates are known to attack. It would not be necessary to arm every ship, even a few dettered attacks and a dozen or so dead pirates would probably be a substantial deterrent. The pirates are in this for the money, not primarily because of ideaology; if it looks like the could be killed then they might reconsider their chosen line of work.
This would only really be a probelm with permanent mounts, such as the aforementioned deck guns, while the heavy machine guns could easily be offloaded along with the trained gunners and support crew when the ship leaves the danger area and before it nears its final port of call (most ships are not stopping in east African ports anyways these days). This way, a crew of military contractors could be transferred from ship to ship, along with their armament, to escort them through the dangerous area without ever nearing an unfriendly port themselves. There are ways to work out the logistics if the laws cannot be changed.
The US military has alread killed the pirates out of necessity; the United States has a long term policy of not negotiating with terrorists, hijackers, or hostage takers. Appeasment only makes the aggressor more aggressive and paying ransoms is not good long term policy. The horse is out of the barn on this one and Americans should avoid capture by Somali pirates at any price. Remember that it is the Somali pirates who are the villains in this business, they attacked first and the US Navy responded in kind. They got what was coming to them.
If the pirates continue to get away with it then the number of attacks will continue to increase until it is worth it. There are lots of young men with AK-47s and RPGs in Somalia who would be willing to try their hand at piracy if nobody stops them and ransoms are regularly paid. Eventually the insurance rates for sailing within 500 miles of the east African coast will become so high that arming merchant ships will become an attractive option. Laws can be changed or worked around as the situation dictates. Remember that there are effectively NO laws on the high seas, except the laws of the flag you sail under. Ports are another situation, but that can probably be worked out too. As for moral qualms, I suspect that most merchant sailers wouldn't mind killing pirates in a gun battle or to prevent the takeover of their ship if it came to that.
I doubt that there would be too many questions; nobody is really interested in taking the side of the pirates in all of this. As for the pirates being better armed that is not necessarily true. The pirates are armed with AK-47s and RPGs and they are firing from rolling and pitching small boats. Their accuracy with a crappy AK-47 (probably with a worn out barrel and worn parts) or even a decent one is going to be terrible until they are right on top of the merchant vessels. If the merchant vessels are equiped with heavy machine guns firing from a much more stable platform (i.e. the rail of the merchant vessel) AND with longer range and more stopping power it is the pirates who will be at a disadvantage. It would also not be too difficult to mount a couple of 5 inch deck guns to discourage any larger pirate vessels from joining the fight. All of this was common practice during WWII for example.
I don't know about you, but being an American I would rather take my chances in a gun battle with the pirates (a rail mounted Browning M2 heavy machine gun would be very useful against pirates armed with AK-47s and RPGs fired from small skiffs) than be taken as a hostage back to Somalia where any Americans will almost certainly be turned over to the local Islamic militias and beheaded. In fact, after the incident with the Maersk Alabama the Somali pirates have already threatned to do just that.
Before you attempt to kill them, you have to be certain that they are a pirate. Legally certain
The high seas are under the laws of no nation; remember that many of these pirates are operating and attacking more than 200 miles offshore. If you are being pursued by an unknown craft which refuses to communicate and gives chase while matching your course changes, that is pretty clearly a hostile act. Firing upon the pursuing boat in such cases is justified in self defense, especially given the recent history and reputation of those waters for piracy.
Tell me, at a glance, what makes a pirate vessel look different from a fishing vessel?
You alter course and they move to pursue or intercept? If the watchmen spots a suspected pirate ship approaching closer than 1,760 yards (about 1 mile), he can signal the bridge and the ship can alter course away from the suspected pirate ship. If they refuse communication, give chase, and attempt to close the distance then it is pretty obvious what their intentions are. Besides, what would Somali fishermen, who are not generally equipped with modern trawlers and towed nets, be doing more than 100 miles off the coast? No, I don't think that it would be a big problem, especially since most cargo ships these days are not looking to approach the Somali coast any closer than that anyway. You might even be generous and direct the first burst well out in front of them, as a warning, before destroying them if they continue to press the attack. This could all be worked out in the training protocols without too much difficulty.
Slashdot Mirror
Are the Feds watching Facebook and other social networking sites? Did the STASI keep tabs on East German citizens? I find it amusing to see people, especially those who are naïve about the way the world works, shocked that intelligence agencies might actually monitor information which they so graciously posted for all the world to see (gasp). Perhaps now they will receive a first hand lesson in why some of us consciously refuse to participate in social networking sites.
but here in the US when you see FBI warnings before a movie stating you'll be fined $150,000 and 10 years in a PMITA prison... I'd rather just keep my mouth shut and let someone who actually got caught challenge the system.
In the United States, where sentences are harsher, fines larger, and prisons are operated as for-profit growth industries, this is probably a wise decision on your part.
Normally I don't reply to AC but this guy really is a pinhead and someone has to call him out so here it is:
These Somalis are more like Americans than I think you realize.
No more like us than like you or anyone else.
Both Somalis and Americans live in a nation where manufacturing jobs are now non-existent.
This simply demonstrates your ignorance. The United States still employs a substantial number people in manufacturing and although the numbers are less than they used to be that is due to increased automation and other efficiencies and lower costs (but not necessarily better efficiency) from off shoring. For example, in India I have heard of some fancy hotels hiring twenty or more people with scissors to cut the lawn by hand because that is cheaper than using a gasoline powered mower. Cheaper? yes. More efficient? hardly.
Americans are more productive per worker and so fewer are needed when combined with automation. Now, it still might be cheaper to produce some things in China, or India, or some other developing economy but that just means that it is cheaper. It does not mean that it is more efficient, that it pollutes less, or even that the quality is the same.
Both Somalis and Americans live in a nation where education is considered a worthless pursuit.
The uneducated might think so, but the rest of us know better. If you find yourself among the former, I highly recommend joining the latter.
Both Somalis and Americans have an utter love for weapons, destruction and killing.
Americans have a long history of refusing to pay ransom to pirates and attacking their bases of operation. In fact, our United States Navy was founded to deal with the Barbary Pirates. Experience in that case, as in others, has shown that the only effective way to deal with organized piracy is to attack and subdue their land bases of operation. We do not kill merely for pleasure or because we enjoy killing, we are not barbarians after all; but neither can we permit piracy to continue unchecked and unchallenged indefinitely. In the short run that means neutralizing the pirate bases, even if a few Somali civilians are killed in the process.
Both Somalis and Americans address their own lack of ability to produce anything of value by attacking others, and taking their resources (oil from Iraq, for instance).
Yes, and the world is secretly controlled by the illuminati, the tri-lateral commission, and the free masons right? Conspiracy theories are fun, but they don't improve one's understanding of the world; they just propagate ignorance and superstition.
You guys actually have a lot in common. You'd probably be pretty good friends with a Somali pirate. You seem to share their lust for violence and the murder of innocent civilians.
Most nations and peoples would actually prefer to ignore the Somalis, but is their own persistent use of violence that compels us to respond in kind. I don't like it when civilians and non-combatants are killed, but that must not prevent us from acting when some group initiates violence against us. We live in the real world with real world problems and messy and imperfect solutions. The pacifists who take the, "not one innocent civilian killed" position are both foolish and naive.
Hmmm...Perhaps we could "invest" a couple of helfire missiles for their next trading session, they really "bring down the house" as they say. Seriously though, now we have women and non-combatants supplying weapons to the pirates. Can someone else please explain why the navies of the world haven't parked offshore and leveled the pirate towns with naval artillery? Its too bad that the United States doesn't keep those Iowa class battleships on the active registry anymore, a few hours of shelling from one of those and any pirate town would be a smoking ruin.
We also, apparently, have enough orthodox, classic right wingers that we voted down legalizing gay marriage recently
It was voted down because the left failed to take into account that a large percentage of the immigrants now living in California come from Mexico and Latin America where Catholicism, which views marriage as a sacrament and takes a dim view on homosexuality, is very strongly entrenched. So while these immigrants are typically a reliable constituency for the left, they are NOT liberal when it comes to issues of sexuality or marriage. The left miscalculated their support for gay marriage in California because they took those immigrants' votes for granted. In fact, it is likely that gay marriage will not happen any time soon in California because the number of immigrants from the aforementioned countries, as a percentage of the population, is only going to increase in the years to come.
So lets recap here: really fast, can handle any data from any time, and a complete compendium of all human knowledge. How much did you say was budgeted for this system again? If you have a practically unlimited budget then such a system might be possible, but if you want to get it done before some time next century and at a reasonable price there have to be compromises.
I have a patent on plagiarism and I want a license fee of $23,148,855,308,184,500 for the use of my valuable intellectual property.
While JavaScript has a good thing going with the web scripting niche, it has a long road to catch up with established players in the heavyweight "everything and the kitchen sink" language category currently filled by C# and Java. It is very difficult to see mainstream platform developers selecting JavaScript as their general purpose language in favor of C#, Java, or even C or objective C (for the Linux and Mac developers respectively). JavaScript would do better to reduce its footprint and burnish its credentials as a web scripting language because that is what we need it to be; after all, we already have good languages in the general purpose category that are NOT suitable for web scripting.
This story brought to you by the RIAA, striking fear across the globe.
Delightfully tacky, yet unrefined; leaves an aftertaste every time!
As a practical matter, real, honest-to-god oldschool "starving kids in ${poor country}" don't really exist anymore. At least, not for reasons that have anything whatsoever to do with arable land, drought, famine, or vermin.
This is true and the primary reason for that is poor government. African governments fail to create even the basic legal framework and proper enforcement necessary to achieve sustained economic growth . Without proper laws that protect private property and reasonably competent and non-corrupt enforcement there can be no real credit or private lending. Without credit and private lending it is difficult or impossible to engage in any large scale economic activity. In short, Africa is poor and hungry because African governments, with a few notable exceptions, have largely failed their peoples.
Finally, to add insult to injury, the vast amounts of foreign aid, and particularly food aid, serve to prevent African farmers from ever stepping onto the ladder of economic growth. Why bust your butt to bring a crop to market when every season there are trucks driving up and dropping sacks of "USA Wheat" in the marketplace for ten times less than it costs you to produce it? The African farmers are driven out of business by artificially cheap farm imports sent as "foreign aid" in the name of "helping the starving people". In the long run, nobody but farmers in wealthy nations benefits from farm subsidies. Incidentally, this is also why the trade talks generally go nowhere. The third world countries form a block to demand an end to farm subsidies while first world diplomats have been specifically instructed by their governments not to give an inch on subsidies.
This guy is a dick and always has been; it's kinda nice to hear he's having trouble!
Nothing like a little Schadenfreude to brighten one's day after all...
I am surprised that so many Slashdot users are actually waiting on ads. Why bother with them at all when you can run AdBlock, NoScript, and Flashblock to remove them? I have absolutely no qualms about doing this; the advertisers don't respect us so why should we respect them? Internet ads are for neophytes and chumps, not those with the knowledge and skill to evade them.
Also, the crews of all boats, also American, are kept on their own ships. Those guys are in it for the money, not religion. Nobody gets beheaded
That is not correct. Consider that the pirates are in it for the money , on that we are agreed? Two things are true for anyone holding Americans hostage:
So, if you are a pirate who is only concerned with money, two things are true:
The pirates are already in a de-facto state of war with the civilized nations of this planet (a war which they started) and holding Americans hostage poses risk of life and limb to them. They would rather cash out by turning hostages over to the militias (who are religiously motivated terrorists that behead captives for ideological reasons) than risk protracted and ultimately fruitless negotiations with the United States government.
Exactly that very same reason is why we don't have terrorism,
It is not the same because the motivations are different. If your motivation is money and not, for example, a religious belief in the afterlife then death matters because you cannot spend money when you are dead. The Somali pirates are essentially motivated by money and they care about saving their own skins to spend it. We don't see them making ideological speeches or press communiques during the hostage negotiations. Such people can be deterred by substantial probability of death whereas someone who wants and expects to be killed cannot; however, those who do not care about death are generally also the types who are not essentially motivated by money (i.e. for them it would be a means to an end but not the end).
That just doesn't work, we got to work out how to improve the country and the region so there are better options than becoming a pirate.
They got their own country into the mess they are in, let them get themselves out of it. It is only our problem in so far as it effects us. Therefore, we should take what steps we can, within reason, to ensure that it doesn't effect us, but another nation-building exercise in Somalia would be misguided; they aren't worth it.
Actually, I'm pretty sure that killing them all would be cheaper than raising their standard of living.
In a macabre sort of way that may be right, but politically speaking it isn't very acceptable.
The following is taken from a recent article on the question of arming merchant ships:
"It's something that could actually stoke up the attacks, take the attacks to a higher level," said Andrew Linington of London-based Nautilus International, a union that represents 24,000 mariners, most of whom work on British- or Dutch-registered ships. But internal polling among Nautilus members has indicated a "hardening of attitudes" in recent months, with more calling for armed protection, Linington said.
Furthermore, merchant ships weren't really protected by being armed to any significant degree, they were ESCORTED by actual warships.
Armament in those days usually consisted of at least one 5 inch or so surplus deck gun (usually of WWI vintage) in addition to the convoy support. A return to a convoy system has also been discussed from time to time. Another option would be arming specific ships as decoys (aka Q-Ships) and then operating those in the areas where pirates are known to attack. It would not be necessary to arm every ship, even a few dettered attacks and a dozen or so dead pirates would probably be a substantial deterrent. The pirates are in this for the money, not primarily because of ideaology; if it looks like the could be killed then they might reconsider their chosen line of work.
This would only really be a probelm with permanent mounts, such as the aforementioned deck guns, while the heavy machine guns could easily be offloaded along with the trained gunners and support crew when the ship leaves the danger area and before it nears its final port of call (most ships are not stopping in east African ports anyways these days). This way, a crew of military contractors could be transferred from ship to ship, along with their armament, to escort them through the dangerous area without ever nearing an unfriendly port themselves. There are ways to work out the logistics if the laws cannot be changed.
The US military has alread killed the pirates out of necessity; the United States has a long term policy of not negotiating with terrorists, hijackers, or hostage takers. Appeasment only makes the aggressor more aggressive and paying ransoms is not good long term policy. The horse is out of the barn on this one and Americans should avoid capture by Somali pirates at any price. Remember that it is the Somali pirates who are the villains in this business, they attacked first and the US Navy responded in kind. They got what was coming to them.
If the pirates continue to get away with it then the number of attacks will continue to increase until it is worth it. There are lots of young men with AK-47s and RPGs in Somalia who would be willing to try their hand at piracy if nobody stops them and ransoms are regularly paid. Eventually the insurance rates for sailing within 500 miles of the east African coast will become so high that arming merchant ships will become an attractive option. Laws can be changed or worked around as the situation dictates. Remember that there are effectively NO laws on the high seas, except the laws of the flag you sail under. Ports are another situation, but that can probably be worked out too. As for moral qualms, I suspect that most merchant sailers wouldn't mind killing pirates in a gun battle or to prevent the takeover of their ship if it came to that.
I doubt that there would be too many questions; nobody is really interested in taking the side of the pirates in all of this. As for the pirates being better armed that is not necessarily true. The pirates are armed with AK-47s and RPGs and they are firing from rolling and pitching small boats. Their accuracy with a crappy AK-47 (probably with a worn out barrel and worn parts) or even a decent one is going to be terrible until they are right on top of the merchant vessels. If the merchant vessels are equiped with heavy machine guns firing from a much more stable platform (i.e. the rail of the merchant vessel) AND with longer range and more stopping power it is the pirates who will be at a disadvantage. It would also not be too difficult to mount a couple of 5 inch deck guns to discourage any larger pirate vessels from joining the fight. All of this was common practice during WWII for example.
I don't know about you, but being an American I would rather take my chances in a gun battle with the pirates (a rail mounted Browning M2 heavy machine gun would be very useful against pirates armed with AK-47s and RPGs fired from small skiffs) than be taken as a hostage back to Somalia where any Americans will almost certainly be turned over to the local Islamic militias and beheaded. In fact, after the incident with the Maersk Alabama the Somali pirates have already threatned to do just that.
Before you attempt to kill them, you have to be certain that they are a pirate. Legally certain
The high seas are under the laws of no nation; remember that many of these pirates are operating and attacking more than 200 miles offshore. If you are being pursued by an unknown craft which refuses to communicate and gives chase while matching your course changes, that is pretty clearly a hostile act. Firing upon the pursuing boat in such cases is justified in self defense, especially given the recent history and reputation of those waters for piracy.
Tell me, at a glance, what makes a pirate vessel look different from a fishing vessel?
You alter course and they move to pursue or intercept? If the watchmen spots a suspected pirate ship approaching closer than 1,760 yards (about 1 mile), he can signal the bridge and the ship can alter course away from the suspected pirate ship. If they refuse communication, give chase, and attempt to close the distance then it is pretty obvious what their intentions are. Besides, what would Somali fishermen, who are not generally equipped with modern trawlers and towed nets, be doing more than 100 miles off the coast? No, I don't think that it would be a big problem, especially since most cargo ships these days are not looking to approach the Somali coast any closer than that anyway. You might even be generous and direct the first burst well out in front of them, as a warning, before destroying them if they continue to press the attack. This could all be worked out in the training protocols without too much difficulty.