Quote:2 means they can attack anything that is diplomatically hostile - so Corsairs, Gaians, pirates, whatever. 5 means they can attack ships belonging to diplomatically hostile Houses.
So currently, if a GRN ship was in Omega 3 (for some reason), the BAF could go and attack it without worrying because it's in their ZoI. However, if there was a Corsair ship sat a few K away, in that scenario they'd have to ignore it because they're not in House space.
-Can defend allied or neutral lawful ships and bases within their Zone of Influence.
Wouldn't this still give BAF justification of shooting pirate ships if they are actually PIRATING in Omega-3, especially since we regularly have allied and neutral lawful ships traveling there, not to mention Douglas Station and Sprague (bases) to protect? You just have to wait until they are actually doing some pirating. I don't see that as terribly bothersome. A pirate who isn't pirating isn't really any threat.
I guess the real loss in this for BAF would be raiding Omega-5, as that was fun activity, but I suppose it's not so much more difficult for Sairs to just raid Dublin/Cambridge and wait for the response.