Those critics got you down? Do you have trouble governing when American voters keep using the web to critique your policies? We’ve got the solution for you: Censor the internet. Is it even in the name of national security? Nope!

On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approved a bill that 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.”

The Obama Administration with the capability of shutting down any website they want whenever they want to shut it down? What could possibly go wrong?

Many people opposed to the bill agree in principle with its aims: Illegal music piracy is, well, illegal, and should be stopped. Musicians, artists and content creators should be compensated for their work. But the law’s critics do not believe that giving the federal government the right to shut down websites at will based upon a vague and arbitrary standard of evidence, even if no law-breaking has been proved, is a particularly good idea. COICA must still be approved by the full House and Senate before becoming law. A vote is unlikely before the new year.

The problem isn’t that illegal file-sharing websites may bite the dust. People should pay a price for knowingly stealing the intellectual property of another person. I’m a property rights guy, as I suspect are most people.

The problem is how the government intends to go about doing so. Giving the Obama Administration the power to shut down any website it wants whenever it wants, regardless of whether a crime was committed, sounds like a pretty bad precedent to set.