Vesseljackers?

The author of Yourself in Five Years identifies some of the pop culture baggage that the term "pirate" carries aboard with it and suggests (tongue a bit in cheek) using "vesseljacker" instead. Language is flexible, though, and we're intent on taking apart the idea of an empirical pirate identity, so why not call them something else and avoid the troubling romanticizations and misleading historical parallels entirely? Well for one thing, it would rather moot our research project. And for another, the term "pirate" carries significant weight in domestic and international law. What the vesseljackers are doing is piracy, as it's legally defined, and calling it such both shapes and enables our legal and military response.

(Thanks to Anna Chapin, classy and loyal partisan of the Roguish Commonwealth, for sending this link our way.)