Exclude privateers' behaviors from militaristic political pressure

I do like the idea of "underhanded politics" and this fits on the list. The point of privateers is that they are anonymous and adding more depth to them would be an interesting change. Perhaps we could go as far to have a quest or two involved with it such as hiring too many would trigger a quest where they have created an illegal criminal network under your empire and you have to choose what to do about it. I may be slightly too ambitous, but I am curious what this idea may lead to.