This week the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold hearings on COICA (the Combating Online Infringements and Counterfeit Act). It sounds like harmless enough legislation, or at least it did to members of the committee who voted for it unanimously, 19-0, during the lame duck session last year. But it’s worse than it sounds.

COICA would allow the U.S. government to seize and remove websites from the Internet without due process and after only the allegation of copyright infringement. As Wired reported, COICA “would give the Attorney General the right to shut down websites with a court order if copyright infringement is deemed ‘central to the activity’ of the site — regardless if the website has actually committed a crime. The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) is among the most draconian laws ever considered to combat digital piracy, and contains what some have called the ‘nuclear option,’ which would essentially allow the Attorney General to turn suspected websites ‘off.'”