Is RIAA redefining guilt?

Re-read this post:

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is insisting that it is illegal for anyone who has legally purchased CDs to transfer that music onto their computer.

and then my follow-up post:

the rhetoric of theft and counterfeiting are being dangerously used to cover all unlicensed activity, whether it is fair use (in the case of copying for personal use), or any other use content owners don't like.

And then this, most recently:
EFF Files Brief in Atlantic v. Howell Resisting RIAA's "Attempted Distribution" Theory

Briefly (sorry, bad pun) put: can people be sued for possible or assumed—yet unproven—copyright infringement?

As the Electronic Freedom Foundation states:

[The RIAA must prove] that actual infringing copies were made or that actual infringing distributions took place. It's not enough to prove that they could have taken place.

What am I missing? Is guilt what we might do rather than what we have actually done?