Can't US use UAVs & hi-tech against pirates ?

I was pleased to hear how finally the US is using UAV's
effectively against the terrorists hiding in Pakistan.

IMO a private company could sort out the current
Indian ocean piracy problem.
What is the resolution that satelites can see re. small
boats in the ocean ? For how long are areas of the
Indian ocean clouded over ? What distance do these
boats travel under cloud cover ?
Apparently with the high profitability of pirating, the
small boarding boats, now use larger mother-ships
to take them out to the 'fishing zone'. So these
larger ships can less easily hide from satelite
surveilance ?

What about a system where all legal craft entering
the area, 'register' and have working gps-ID, and
the whole area is 'coordinated' by computer.
What about UAVs which can operate from ships ?
Helicopters are too slow and expensive.

The idea is NOT to *avoid* the pirates, but to
ambush and eradicate them.

But we must be prepared for backlash from the
PeeCee woosies ?