National Platform

Putting Individuals Before Institutions

The Pirate Party stands for individuals over institutions, both governmental and non-governmental. We believe that the people hold the ultimate power in this nation, and institutions should not exist to crush the will of the people. With the backdrop of Citizens United and a steady erosion of individual power, taking money out of politics ensures our government serves the people rather than deep-pocketed interests. The United States Pirate Party will always put the needs of the people first and work to reform institutions that do not serve them.

Right to Repair

We believe purchasing is ownership: whether you buy a tractor, a motorcycle, or an iPhone, you should own the device. You should be able to diagnose problems with software and be able to fix it yourself or take it to any repair shop of your choosing. We support repealing section 1201 of the DMCA. This would allow for repair and diagnosis to occur without being treated as criminal conduct. We also support fair and non-discriminatory access. Manufacturers must provide to consumers and independent repair shops the same resources that they would provide to their own service channels.

Opening up Government

In order for citizens to control their democratic destiny, we need to know what our government is doing and which special interests are influencing our public elected officials. Increasingly government officials ignore open meeting laws, make deals favorable to corporations behind closed doors and sell off your public information to private interests. Some state laws prevent people from recording public officials in their duties, such as a police officer making an arrest, but the police cameras can record your actions without your permission. The Pirate Party will make sure that our government is transparent and accountable to the people.
As it currently stands, America’s electoral system is broken. Two political parties have entrenched themselves, and they prevent other viewpoints from being heard. To address this, the Pirate Party proposes that legislatures should be elected via proportional representation, candidates should have less barriers to ballot access, and voter registration should be automatic.

Defending Your Privacy

Whether it was the PATRIOT ACT, illegal NSA wiretapping or local surveillance cameras, our government has used 9/11 to increase its surveillance and control over us. Corporations have increased their spying on employees in order to get more work out of them. The arguments for each step on the road to a surveillance state may sound convincing, but that road leads to less control by people and more by government and corporate elites. Terrorists may attack the open society, but only governments can abolish it. The Pirate Party will prevent that from happening.

Promoting Culture & Knowledge Through Copyright Reform

The Founding Fathers created our copyright laws to promote knowledge & culture by giving the creator a limited monopoly over their creations. Congress, under the influence of corporations, has extended the duration of that government granted monopoly to seventy years after the death of the creator. Increasingly corporations have sought broader laws to ensure that they control and profit from more of our culture. Through Digital Rights Management (DRM) technologies they have locked down our culture, hindered sharing and criminalized their customers.
The Pirate Party will:

• limit the copyright to five years for electronic media and fourteen years for tangible objects,


• make sure that all non-commercial copying, sharing and remixing are legal and


• ban DRM software.

There is no reason for copyright to continue until 70 years after death.
Everyone must have equal access to the internet, and the Pirate Party will foster network neutrality so that internet service providers cannot give preferential treatment to preferred web sites and we oppose three strikes laws that ban anyone from using the internet because of copyright violations. The internet has the potential to be a new Library of Alexandria, if we don’t let corporations and government lock it down.

Fostering Innovation by Abolishing Patents

We seek the abolition of patents. The patent system stifles innovation by making it difficult to incorporate an existing invention into a new one. It discourages researchers from sharing their new ideas until after a patent application. It prevents hundreds of thousands of people in poor countries from receiving the drugs they need. Currently pharmaceutical companies spend only 15% of their revenue on new drug research. The remaining 85% is spent on activities such as marketing and profit taking. A reformed system would dramatically increase the money available for innovation, while removing the obstacles to innovation posed by the current patent system.

Police Reform

We believe that major police reform is not only a legitimate idea, but a necessity. Due to the divisive and hot button nature of this topic, the USPP is dedicated to finding quality solutions that can be agreed upon by the vast majority. Here are a few steps we can take towards reform:

• Demilitarize the police through actions such as ending the 1033 Program and discouraging technique sharing between the neighborhood police and the military or federal intelligence agencies;


• End qualified immunity and hold officers accountable when they break the law;


• End civil asset forfeiture and its enabling of “slush funds” to be used for any purpose;


• Invest money into community care instead of more policing, especially in areas currently impacted by over-policing;


• Require warrants for all forms of surveillance and end no-knock warrants;


• Force departments to collect statistics in order to outline biases in enforcement and which enforcement methods are better for the community;


• Ensure nobody is put in jail for actions of basic survival;


• Properly train our police forces with regular training in all aspects of the job. This will include but not limited to mental health assessments, first responder medical certification, community policing, & public engagement.


• Ending cash bail


• Ending prison slavery

Bigotry

We proudly condemn bigotry as irrational and repugnant. We believe this behavior to be fundamentally incompatible with our core values. Pirates stand for everyone, even when others do not.

Foreign Policy

We advocate for the right to free association and self-determination. We believe people living in a political entity should have the right to maintain, alter or conclude their relationship to larger entities, or join in union, if it is the will of the people. We affirm the right to free movement. The foreign policy of the United States has not reflected those values.

International Law

To hold ourselves accountable to the standards we expect of other countries, we believe the United States should

• Ratify the Rome Statute and repeal the Hague Invasion Act.


• Join the Ottawa Treaty and the CCM treaty


• Ratify the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and join the High Seas Treaty.


• Ratify Protocol I and II to the Geneva Conventions.


• Make all international treaties self-executing, and engage with the system of international law without substantive carve-outs.


• Pay UN dues in full and on time.

The same standard applies to what we fund abroad. We should give no military aid to any undemocratic country including the genocidal apartheid state of Israel.

Pan-Americanism

In our own hemisphere, decades of embargo and sanction have punished populations without changing the governments they were aimed at. The United States has not been a good neighbor. We believe that through the OAS or other Pan-American organizations we should foster genuine collaboration and friendship. We should end the Cuban embargo, close Guantanamo Bay, lift sanctions on Nicaragua and end the occupation of Venezuela. Legislation should be passed explicitly preventing the US government and its intelligence agencies from covertly interfering with elections anywhere. This is only a start to what needs to be done to repair relations in the Americas.

Trade and Sanctions

We strive for free trade and free movement of peoples, as it will lead to a higher quality of life for everyone. Unfortunately, sanctions and tariffs will remain a tool of policy for the foreseeable future. They should be bounded in time and should be targeted at governments like those of Russia and China which continually infringe upon their citizens human rights. There should be permanent humanitarian exemptions in sanctions for food and medicine. Sunset clauses and mandatory congressional reauthorization should be attached to any sanctions or tariff regime.

Military Spending

Our force structure should be sized to the missions we actually intend to carry out. The US military is by far the most powerful in the world, it is an unjustifiable level of over-preparedness. With the goal of reducing US military spending to 50% of its current level over the next 15 years, we should reevaluate our defense spending priorities. Savings should first come from contractors. We should restore competitive bidding as the default. We should require certified cost and pricing data on every part a military contractor sells us. The Pentagon budget should be cut every year it fails an audit, and most overseas bases should be closed. We should pair this drawdown with a doubling of the peace corps.

Nuclear Weapons

While nuclear weapons will certainly remain an essential part of US military capability for the foreseeable future, our nuclear strategy should be aimed at the eventual goal of a world without them. To that end:

• We should negotiate an expanded New START successor treaty to govern a mutual drawdown in nuclear weapons, within a framework that can include all nuclear powers.


• We should adopt a legally binding no-first-use policy for nuclear weapons.


• We should ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty.

War Powers

Congress must also reclaim its constitutional authority over the use of force. The 2001 AUMF should be repealed, and the War Powers Act should be amended to close loopholes and strengthen enforcement.
The War Powers Act should be updated to require congressional authorization before introducing US forces into any hostilities, except to repel an actual armed attack on the United States. Any such emergency use of force should terminate automatically, with appropriations cut off, absent congressional authorization within 30 days.
The definition of hostilities should be expanded to explicitly include drone strikes, standoff strikes, special operations raids, offensive cyber operations, direct support to belligerents, and any other comparable use of force that successive presidents have used to avoid congressional oversight and conduct illegal wars. Individual members of Congress should be granted standing to sue for unauthorized uses of force, with expedited review and political-question dismissal barred.

Clean Water

Water is life, and it belongs to everyone. As a core part of the commons, it must never be polluted, privatized, or restricted for profit. Decades of deregulation, judicial rollbacks, corporate influence, and government negligence have left communities poisoned and ecosystems collapsing. “Self-regulation” has consistently failed; polluters place profit above public health, and our waterways have paid the price. Pirates refuse to let rivers, lakes, aquifers, and seas become dumping grounds for corporate abuse or political indifference.
Water must be stewarded transparently, democratically, and with the protection of future generations in mind. It is a human right, a public trust, and a shared responsibility.

The Pirate Party Will:

• Defend water as a protected common resource and guarantee universal access to safe, affordable drinking water.


• Keep water systems under democratic public control; oppose privatization and profiteering from essential water services.


• Reject any laws, rulings, or policies that weaken environmental protections or reduce accountability for polluters.


• Demand strict penalties, mandatory cleanup, and full public oversight for all contamination events.


• Ban water shutoffs due to inability to pay.


• Promote lead pipe replacement, PFAS remediation, building of desalinization plants and climate-resilient water infrastructure.


• Require open, real-time, public, and interoperable data on water quality, spending, infrastructure, and contamination.


• Support community-driven stewardship of waterways, including local boards, cooperatives, and open-data monitoring.


• Advance the development and adoption of safe, environmentally inert materials and processes that cannot poison water through accident or abuse.


• Promote scientific innovation and sustainable materials engineering that provide alternatives to harmful substances.


• Protect Indigenous water rights and uphold treaty obligations.

Clean water is not negotiable. Pirates stand for clean seas, healthy waterways, and a future where every community has the power, the data, and the resources to defend its water. We will fight to protect it, restore it, and ensure it flows freely for generations to come. Positions on Other Issues The scope of the Pirate Party was originally limited to a few core issues. However now the United States Pirate Party, in common with many other Pirate Parties, is drafting policies on a variety of different issues. We need your help in deciding positions on every policy that matters to US voters. Please attend a PNC meeting to see how you can join our Platform Committee. Be sure to check out our Approved Platform Positions to see what else Pirate Parties around the country might believe!