Congress may outlaw "attempted" piracy

cnet-declan writes: "The Bush administration is asking Congress to make "attempted" copyright infringement a federal crime. It's no joke. Here's our News.com article on the topic, along with the text of the legislation and a press-release -type summary. Rep. Lamar Smith, a key House Republican, said he "applauds" the idea, and his Democratic counterpart is probably on board too. In addition, the so-called Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2007 would create a new crime of life imprisonment for using pirated software in some circumstances, expand the DMCA with civil asset forfeiture, and authorize wiretaps in investigations of Americans who are "attempting" to infringe copyrights. Does this go too far?"