The end of file sharing and digital piracy could be near. In November, the Senate Judiciary Committee chaperoned a bill through committee phase which would permit the Attorney General to shut down entire Web sites if copyright infringement is determined to be “central to the activity” of the site. This bill, US Senate bill 3804, the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA), sailed through Senate committee under the wing of a sponsor and 19 co-sponsors in a little less than two months.

A week after S.3804 passed committee, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a branch of the Department of Homeland Security seized the domains of a variety of sites whose central purpose was illegal file-sharing. Upon visiting these blocked sites, Internet users worldwide found their screens filled with a US government issued statement explaining the closure of the domain and the possible fines for those who jump on the metaphorical file-sharing boat.

In an interview with “New York Times,” Cori W. Basset, a spokeswoman for the ICE, shed light on the incident.

“ICE office of Homeland Security Investigations executed court-ordered seizure warrants against a number of domain names,” Basset said.

These government mandated seizures are part of the new aforementioned bill, which critics, net neutrality and free speech advocates, and members of the file-sharing community worry will give the Department of Justice too much power due to ambiguous wording. According to Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group that opposes the bill, simply advocating for file sharing and copyright rejection can lead to a Web site’s “digital death,” as wired.com called Web site closure, a fact which has sparked fiery opposition.

According to wired.com, The American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch expressed their dissent of COICA and warned of human rights backlash. Furthermore, a group of “the most prominent” Internet engineers in the country, many of whom had a hand in the creation of the internet, remarked that the bill would “create an environment of fear and uncertainty for technological innovation.”

To strengthen the opposition, 49 law professors deemed COICA an “unconstitutional abridgment of the freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment,” and with regard to the denial of due process, wrote that “the Act permits the issuance of speech suppressing injunctions without any meaningful opportunity for any party to contest the Attorney General’s allegations of unlawful content,” as wired.com also noted. “We require a principle that: No person or organization shall be deprived of their ability to connect to others at will without due process of law, with the presumption of innocence until found guilty,” Berners-Lee said.

To finally stop their enormous profit losses caused by file-sharing, the content companies are finally demanding the federal government take action, and COICA was the government’s response.

Furthermore, House Resolution 1512, introduced in June, was titled, “Commending Google Inc. and other companies for advocating for an uncensored Internet, adhering to free speech principles, and keeping the Internet open for users worldwide.” This was evidently also overlooked during COICA’s inception.

The simple everyday online interactions must also be considered. Imagine not being able to access YouTube, which, in August of 2010 became the third most-visited site in the world wide Web. Since YouTube is host to copyrighted songs, television shows, and even full length segmented movies, it is plausible that the entire YouTube domain would be threatened for government closure, if the COICA bill becomes law.

Whatever the course of COICA may be, the effects are sure to impact the way which Internet users worldwide surf the web, and our collective perspective of liberty in America.