The Internet (and Censorship)

Today and yesterday, two internet censorship bills have been brought to the attention of the public.
I consider this an interesting step.
The vast majority of those around me (owing in no small part to the fact that I'm in very close proximity to one of the most progressive areas in the country) are strongly opposed to both of the recent acts that are getting passed through the legislature.
Wikipedia links: Protect IP Act (Internet Blacklist Bill) and Stop Online Piracy Act
There are some behemoths clashing at the political level here; Viacom, the Motion Picture Association of America, the Recording Industry of America, and Macmillan Publishers are taking on Google (alongside Yahoo! and eBay), and Reporters Without Borders (among many others on both sides).

I am rather ambivalent on the issue.
The objective truth is that this bill would place definitive restrictions on the information flow across the country, and allow the government to regulate (and enforce said regulations) the nature of how files are exchanged on a variety of levels (I won't get into the technical details here; they're on the Wikipedia pages).

Is this a good thing or a bad thing?
I have heard many arguments regarding the first amendment (many think this will be a frivolously easy case for the Supreme Court in favor of the 1st amendment and against both of these bills), among human rights ideas and whatnot... but honestly, I support these bills, and this is why:

The information age is unprecedented. I don't claim to have a full grasp of the power of the internet, and I don't think anybody else should either... and by power, I mean what it enables in terms of information flow, on all levels. Twenty years ago, if a scientist from Switzerland wanted to collaborate with one in New Zealand, s/he would have to run an experiment, gather data, draw conclusions, and send it via what we now happily call 'snail mail' to his/her colleague, which could take weeks or even months (more like days in more modern times, but the analogy works, I swear) to reach the other scientist. This is how they would communicate. Today, they can run the experiment nearly in real time with one another, transferring large amounts of data (which could take reams of paper) in seconds.
Forget science: the arts. Social networking sites like Deviantart have allowed artists (in all senses of the word) to meet, collaborate, and learn from each other in ways that were previously impossible.
I could cite examples until the end of time, but it's all now become an unprecedented degree of information flow. Humans are interacting with each other in ways that almost transcend physical reality into... I am cringing while typing this... a sort of meta-reality. The significance of the internet is directly derived from humanity's use of it. Beyond how people use it, the entire 'information superhighway' is completely obsolete. It matters only as much as the collective of people who use it.
So... time to loop this back around:
The internet is re-shaping modern society and is quickly becoming the primary source of information for an increasing number of people every year. First, it was on a few computers in universities networked across the country... then it started creeping into homes... and then into cell phones, gaming consoles, cars... how many people reading this have used the internet on only ONE device (not regularly... I mean overall). Of those, how many can remember using it for the first time?
The internet is reshaping how society interacts with itself. The acquisition of information for an individual connected to the internet is much more efficient than one who is watching television or listening to the radio- at least in terms of what that individual WANTS to learn.

Having blabbered about the internet long enough, I will NOW come back to why I support these two bills (for reals, this time):
Society needs rules. People need rules. Where rules do not exist, the lack of rules will be exploited. Where rules do exist, they must be enforced. The only objective rules in this universe are the laws of nature... and they are the only reason anything exists. Society exists because of the laws imposed by the government. The next step is to impose rules on the next level of information exchange; as a species, we have moved on from exchanging gestures to tasks to words (spoken) to words (written) [and pictures along the way] to ideas to concepts and to higher levels of organization as society has developed (at least that's what the history books have taught me... though I was never quite good at history).

My point is that the internet is modern human society's next primary medium of information storage and exchange, and rules need to be set and enforced. The rules proposed by congress, I believe will accomplish this. Yes, they will anger MANY people (and quite frankly, I don't believe they'll hold up for very long, since the American public already is rather angry with congress); at some point, even if not now, the internet will need to be structured, regulated, and safe. Online interactions must not always be allowed to elude established societal constructs (like the criminalizing of piracy) in the name of freedom. Nobody fights to remove the lanes from freeways in the name of freedom (successfully), why? I should be able to drive wherever I want. No. Certain aspects of the internet have caused significant damage to a significant number of people socially, economically, and politically (I'm looking at you, Anthony Weiner), and they need to be regulated.
Granted, this may not be the right time to take this sort of step, I do believe it needs to be taken. The internet has much more potential than how we currently use it, and the only way to reach that is to structure it in a way that is conducive to the individual alongside those that try to capitalize on it. Capitalism is progress- it flourishes in a structured system. Let it do so, and watch the internet soar beyond what anyone could have imagined.