Consumer groups want to be represented at a House Judiciary Committee hearing on the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which is intended to crack down on pirated content online.

Several consumer and privacy groups on Tuesday penned a letter to the chairman and ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee expressing their displeasure with a controversial bill intended to crack down on pirated content online, as well as the committee's lack of representation from these groups at a planned Wednesday hearing.

The groups—the Competitive Enterprise Institute, TechFreedom, Public Knowledge, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation—argued that it's not clear how the measure will "affect the due process and free speech rights of law-abiding Internet users around the world, user security, and the ability of entrpreneurs to create new products and invent new industries."

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and a number of international civil and human rights groups also voiced their concern.

The bill at issue is the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Supporters, like the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), argue that it will help copyright holders shut down Web sites that contain pirated content. Detractors argue that the provisions are vague and could target U.S. companies and Web users, not just international criminals.

Among the more controversial provisions is a section that would allow rights holders to contact the financial institutions that do business with a particular Web site and ask them to shut down access because of infringing content. If you ran a Web site that used PayPal or accepted payment via MasterCard, for example, and someone thought your site contained pirated content, they could contact PayPal or MasterCard and have those companies cut off access to your site, effectively shutting down your business.

In a , RIAA chief Cary Sherman argued that some of the arguments against SOPA were hyperbolic and said victims must "follow a strict set of rules when notifying payment processors or ad networks that are funding the rogue site."

In their letter, however, the groups said "the precise meaning and practical effect of several key provisions of this bill remain hotly disputed." Enacting the bill without further debate "would undermine the very rule of law the bill's supporters want to defend," they wrote. The groups asked Reps. Lamar Smith and John Conyers to include public interest representatives in the debate and, particularly, at tomorrow's hearing.

In a statement, Rep. Smith, chairman of the committee, said his team has "met with groups and companies with different views on how to address rogue websites."

A hearing earlier this year, Smith said, included the testimony of Center for Democracy and Technology. "And tomorrow, we will hear from a representative of Google, which opposes legislative efforts to rein in rogue websites."

"The theft of America's IP costs the U.S. economy more than $100 billion annually and results in the loss of thousands of American jobs. We must protect America's intellectual property from rogue websites," Smith continued. "This bill helps stop the flow of revenue to rogue websites and ensures that the profits from American innovations go to American innovators."

Tomorrow's hearing, which is set to begin at 10am, will include testimony from: Maria Pallante, register of copyrights for the U.S. Library of Congress; John Clark, chief security officer at Pfizer; Michael O'Leary, senior vice president of policy for the MPAA; Linda Kirkpatrick, group head of customer performance integrity at MasterCard; Katherine Oyama, Google's policy counsel; and Paul Almeida, president of the AFL-CIO's department of professional employees.

The hearing will be webcast live on the committee's Web site.

The interest groups in question have organized American Censorship Day tomorrow, which asks participating Web sites to "censor" their logos with a "stop censorship" banner for the day. Clicking on the logo will take users to a page where they can contact their congressional representatives. According to organizers, sites like reddit, Boing Boing, EFF, Creative Commons, and Hype Machine have signed up.

On Tuesday, meanwhile, the Brookings Institute released a paper analyzing SOPA and the Protect IP Act.

"While these bills will not 'break the Internet,' they further burden cyberspace with three new risks," report author Allan A. Friedman wrote. "First, the added complexity makes the goals of stability and security more difficult. Second, the expected reaction of Internet users will lead to demonstrably less secure behavior, exposing many American Internet users, their computers and even their employers to known risks. Finally, and most importantly, these bills will set back other efforts to secure cyberspace, both domestically and internationally. As such, policymakers are encouraged to analyze the net benefits of these bills in light of the increased cybersecurity risks."