Scout - 4/14/2013 9:31 AM 
In the US Constitution, the Congress is empowered to issue letters of marque and reprisal. I don’t know when the last one was issued. Generally, the deal is that you outfit your expedition at your own expense and split the booty with the Federal government. This arrangment was an important source of gunpowder during the Revolution. There’s a marvellous story about privateers who went to New Providence Island (Bahamas) during the Rev War, but I can’t remember the title.
A few years ago, I wrote my Congressman and asked him to have one of his staffers draw up the papers so I could go to Somalia and hunt pirates (dive, too). I didn’t get a response. Woudl have made a great DiveBuddy.com trip. In the 70s, a group of Florida businessmen petitioned Congress for letters of marque: they wanted to intercept drug runners and promised to turn over all the dope if they could keep everything else. There are plenty of books on the subject; the best known is "A History of American Privateers," by Edgar Stanton Maclay.