If your smart TV, iPhone or laptop has been hacked, new legislation would allow you to legally hack back to access the attacker’s computer and identify them.

Rep. Tom Graves, a Georgia Republican, describes his proposed law as a “discussion draft” intended to jump-start debate amid routine headline-grabbing cyberattacks.

“This bill is about empowering individuals to defend themselves online, just as they have the legal authority to do during a physical assault,” Graves said in a press release.

Graves says in an email the bill "will serve as a disincentive for criminal hacking because the risk of getting caught will likely go up," foreseeing the creation and use of tools designed to identify attackers, who then would be reported to authorities.

"Current law essentially leaves individuals and businesses defenseless if their anti-virus software fails," he says. "I want that to change."

The Active Cyber Defense Certainty (ACDC) Act would amend the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which bans unauthorized access of computers. It was unveiled Friday, before WikiLeaks on Tuesday published apparent CIA documents describing the hacking of smartphones and Samsung TVs.

The idea of treating a computer virus victim like the recipient of a face-punch, however, has received mixed reviews from experts.

Attorney Ed McAndrew, a former federal prosecutor who worked on cybercrime cases, told Hacker News it may be difficult for people to accurately target attackers.

"This is a real concern,” McAndrew told the publication. “You could have people hacking back at pivots (in an attack). Are you hitting back against an attacker or someone accidentally in the middle?"

Brad Maryman, a retired FBI agent who leads the cybersecurity firm Maryman & Associates, has similar concerns.

“As someone who deals in these matters on a daily basis, I am not of the opinion that the average citizen is capable of appropriately identifying the ‘hacker’ nor judiciously wielding the types of tools required to ‘hack someone back,’" he tells U.S. News.

Maryman says many cyberattacks “are routed through other victims’ systems after they themselves have been compromised” as part of “botnet” networks of infected computers.

“Cyber security and forensic practitioners are well aware of the difficulty they face in determining an accurate attribution of an attack,” he says. “The thought of millions of cyberattack victims taking matters into their own hands is a vision of chaos and fraught with peril both to themselves and to the persons whom they may misguidedly attack.”

The bill would specifically allow victims of a "persistent unauthorized intrusion" to access of an attacker’s computer “to gather information in order to establish attribution of criminal activity to share with law enforcement or to disrupt continued unauthorized activity against the victim’s own network.”

The proposal would not allow action that “destroys the information stored on a computers of another,” “causes physical injury to another person” or “creates a threat to the public health or safety.”

Graves says he believes the bill would not become a common legal defense for criminal hackers and says it does not allow hacking of fellow victims. He stresses it does not allow for retaliatory action.

“This is a self-defense bill that has safeguards to ensure the active defense is only targeted at the source of the attack, and imposes a strict standard of care on the defender to ensure that innocent bystanders aren’t impacted,” Graves says.

“Moreover, the bill specifically prohibits vigilantism, forbids physical damage or destruction of information on anyone else’s computer, and prevents collateral damage by constraining the types of actions that would be considered active defense,” he says.

Not everyone pooh-poohs the idea. University of Texas law professor Bobby Chesney offered a detailed analysis for the blog Lawfare, concluding it was a useful starting point, though perhaps in need of refined definitions and an oversight mechanism.

Other recent federal efforts to combat hacking include legislation slipped into a larger bill in late 2015 to facilitate sharing of information on cyberattacks between companies and the government, which aroused privacy concerns. And in December a change in federal warrant rules allows for a single judge to authorize the FBI to hack into vast botnet networks of up to millions of computers and even "liberate" victims.

Graves says the bill would not legalize unauthorized access of government computers – though it’s unclear how victims would know if their systems are infected by authorities, rather than by criminals.

The congressman has invited recommended changes but after initial critiques still believes the proposal is fundamentally a good idea.

"I believe people should have the legal authority to defend themselves during a cyberattack, and the tools to assist the authorities with catching the bad guys," he says.

Maryman says, however, he could imagine the reform causing unintended consequences that actually undermine investigations.