Issa: Web Proposal Gives Holder Too Much Clout to Police Internet

House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa warns that a proposed Internet anti-piracy bill would give Attorney General Eric Holder widespread power to police the Web.

The proposal retains “the fundamental flaws of its predecessor by blocking Americans’ ability to access websites, imposing costly regulation on Web companies, and giving Attorney General Eric Holder’s Department of Justice broad new powers to police the Internet,” the California Republican said, as reported at DailyCaller.com.

Texas Republican Rep. Lamar Smith’s Stop Online Piracy Act, which would give authority over copyright-infringement websites to the Department of Justice, will go before the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday.

The Caller quotes Holder’s 1999 comment to NPR in which he states his philosophy on government’s role in policing the Internet, a month after the massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado: “The court has really struck down every government effort to try to regulate [the Web]. We tried with regard to pornography. It is gonna be a difficult thing, but it seems to me that if we can come up with reasonable restrictions, reasonable regulations in how people interact on the Internet, that is something that the Supreme Court and the courts ought to favorably look at.”