US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is pushing Congress to enact a sweeping new intellectual property bill, the Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2007, that would increase criminal penalties for copyright infringement, including “attempts” to commit piracy where no actual copyright infringement occurs.

“To meet the global challenges of IP crime, our criminal laws must be kept updated,” Gonzales said during a speech before the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington on Monday.

To many, the bill seems like something from a sci-fi movie dystopia, because it would:

• Criminalize “attempting” to infringe copyright.
• Make using pirated software punishable by life imprisonment
• Permit more wiretaps for investigating suspected copyright violations.
• Make it easier for the government to seize your computer. .
• Increase penalties for violating the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s anti-circumvention regulations.
• Add penalties for “intended” copyright crimes.
• Require Homeland Security to alert the Recording Industry Association of America when CDs with unauthorized copies of musical performances are attempted to be imported.

More discussion: Scoble, Dave Winer