Debate over new "Super-DMCA" legislation, which some believe could make things like firewalls or encryption a criminal offense, has grown to a fevered pitch among legal analysts and privacy advocates. Last week a website named Freedom-To-Tinker, run by a Princeton professor, got many up in arms by suggesting that a new batch of legislation making its way through several states (proposed by the MPAA) was a horribly worded monster of a law that could make many common technologies illegal.

The MPAA first drafted a "model" version of the bill, and has been busy pushing it through the various state's legislative processes. A list of the states, and the bills, can be found here.

It's the width and breadth of the language contained in the bills that has most analysts (both technical and legal) worried. The existing DMCA laws already are begging for revisions, due to their confusing and malleable application (ever think it could apply to printer cartridges?), and these new variations don't appear to make things any simpler. In fact many people are still trying to figure out what the new Super-DMCA laws would solve exactly.

For example, most variants of this bill would make it illegal to "conceal from a communication service provider ... the existence or place of origin or destination of any communication". Does this include firewalls? Encrypted web-mail services? NAT? Web Caching? Virtual private networks? Anonymous surfing tools?

Many argue that you aren’t truly hidden from view when you use many of these technologies, since your ISP is still aware of which IP address the communication originated, and who owns it. They also argue it's surely not the bill's intent to ban such common-place technology. But it's difficult to argue that the bills don't occasionally veer into the land of absurdity.

Section 6(a)(3) of the Texas variant of this same legislation says you can't even possess information about how to get around cable theft protection systems.

The bills as they stand are being passed off by the MPAA as a means to ban cable TV descramblers, and secure the infrastructure of cyberspace while crushing piracy, if the organization's synopsis of the bills (.pdf file) is any indication. The MPAA has also been circulating this one page lobbying flyer (pdf copy) to help drum up support for the idea.

If you examine the original model language draft (rtf file) of the legislation, it would appear to make it clear that the bill would only make concealment illegal if the owner of the technology "commits an offense... knowingly and with the intent to defraud a communication service provider."

But the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and Edward Felten, the Freedom to Tinker website operator, reminds people digesting the legislation that "citizens have to live with the consequences of well-intentioned but poorly drafted laws". Not all the variations of the legislation are very clear that "criminal intent" is necessary in order to prosecute.

In Colorado, the bill was not received well, amd a revised version isn't making critics any happier. Senator Jim Isgar apparently worked hard to rework the language, making "criminal intent" a primary sticking point. However the bill still has before opponents stop sweating. Among other oddities, the bill would still make it illegal to tell another person how to find or operate a p2p client.

This legislation is certainly aiming for cable pirates and college student Bob, viewing illegal films and listening to pirated Eminem mp3's on his i-Mac, but it's certainly liable to catch a few others in its broad and seemingly sloppy cross-fire.