Here come the copyright vigilantes

This is worth stating again: somebody who claims that you might be violating their copyright will be legally allowed to attack your systems. You can not challenge the attacker in court without getting permission from a federal bureaucrat - who, one assumes, may not be particularly sympathetic to your cause.

For added fun, any "copyright holder" will be authorized to act in this fashion. As soon as, say, a copyrighted article is posted to Usenet, the owner of that article will have the right to take the whole thing down. If one makes the reasonable assumption that some people might just feel the need to retaliate against an attack of this nature, whether or not they are protected by federal law, it is not hard to foresee a time when the net is a rather more violent and unpleasant place than it is now.

It is hard to imagine this law actually passing - though it is dangerous to assume reasonable behavior in Washington these days. But the proposal is a clear sign of the sort of power grab that is underway. Not only do they want control over every bit that passes through your computer; they also want the ability to take justice into their own hands if they don't like your behavior. Stallman's The Right To Read looks more prophetic all the time.