Latest news with #AssemblyBill379
San Francisco Chronicle
31-07-2025
- Politics
- San Francisco Chronicle
Amid Epstein scandal, California navigates its own sex trafficking panic
With the Jeffrey Epstein scandal and Sean Combs trial jarring public attention around sex trafficking, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday signed a bill that aims to increase penalties for traffickers of teens and their customers. But more than three dozen civil rights, survivor and immigrant organizations — and even some legislators who voted for the bill — say the well-intentioned Assembly Bill 379 revives a vague, Jim Crow-era law that Newsom largely struck from the books three years ago because of its discriminatory application against Black and gay communities. And the opponents say that AB379 could inadvertently help the Trump administration deport California immigrants who have done nothing wrong. 'None of us want minors to be sex trafficked. None of us want anyone to be sex trafficked,' said Ann Block, a senior staff attorney with the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, a national policy organization that opposed AB379. '(But) this bill is so vague. … I can't imagine how this will not sweep up a lot of people who have nothing to do with prostitution.' AB379's emotionally fraught, five-month journey to becoming law underscores a political dichotomy: At a time when President Donald Trump is being hammered by his MAGA base for withholding the so-called Epstein files, in Sacramento it is the Democrats who are on the defensive regarding one of society's darkest crimes. Introduced in February by Assembly Member Maggy Krell, D-Sacramento, AB379 sharpens criminal penalties against adults who solicit sex from teens and civil penalties against businesses that enable them. It does this by making the solicitation of 16- and 17-year-olds a 'wobbler' offense that prosecutors can charge as a felony if the perpetrator is more than three years older than the victim. The age-gap provision was added to make sure older teens and young adults wouldn't face sex-crime felonies for being in consensual relationships with younger partners, and quieted one of the first dustups over the bill. But the real battle erupted over a portion of the legislation that has gotten little media attention. AB379 also makes it a misdemeanor to loiter in a public place with the intent to purchase commercial sex, a crime the bill says can be evidenced by 'circling an area in a motor vehicle and repeatedly beckoning to, contacting, or attempting to contact or stop pedestrians or other motorists, making unauthorized stops along known prostitution tracks, or engaging in other conduct indicative of soliciting to procure another to engage in commercial sex.' Opponents say that language is so broad it can apply to day laborers, rideshare drivers, outreach workers and people who live and work in neighborhoods where prostitution occurs, an argument the impartial Senate Rules Committee bolstered in an analysis warning the definition 'may be constitutionally overbroad.' 'It could be (challenged),' said Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, one of only two legislators to vote against AB379. 'Loitering laws inherently raise potential constitutional issues, because they're so vague in terms of the behaviors that are being criminalized.' Wiener was the one to introduce Senate Bill 357 in 2022, which deleted the crime of loitering with the intent to engage in prostitution because of its fuzzy definition and discriminatory history against Black, brown and LGBTQ communities. A 2019 study by the Los Angeles County Public Defender's Office found the charge resulted in hugely lopsided arrests of young Black women because of how they were dressed. When he signed SB357 in July 2022, Newsom pushed back against law enforcement criticism that it would legalize prostitution. 'It simply revokes provisions of the law that have led to disproportionate harassment of women and transgender adults,' the governor wrote in his signing statement, adding a cautionary note that he'd be watching 'crime and prosecution trends for any possible unintended consequences and will act to mitigate any such impacts.' Newsom, largely speculated to be considering a 2028 presidential campaign, did not release a signing statement for AB379. A month after SB357 took effect in 2023, San Diego's police chief claimed it prevented his officers from rescuing trafficked sex workers by arresting them. The California Penal Code includes multiple laws against human trafficking, pimping and pandering and prostitution. 'To be clear, the police don't need anti-loitering laws to protect or help survivors or hold traffickers accountable,' Jess Torres, a child sex trafficking survivor who was formerly incarcerated and undocumented, said during the Senate Public Safety Committee hearing on June 10. 'Human trafficking continues to be illegal and we already have a trafficking law that criminalizes persons who pay for sex with minors.' Opponents have also raised the issue that the loitering misdemeanor can be a deportable offense and gives the Trump administration another avenue into California's immigrant communities, which have been under siege from Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids at worksites, courthouses, clinics, campuses and homes. 'ICE are going after people who are arrested, who enter the criminal justice system at all. They're arresting people at arraignment, without prior contact,' said Kate Chatfield, executive director of the California Public Defenders Association, which opposed the bill. 'Just expanding the net of arrests for people, whether or not they're ultimately convicted, you are putting them in ICE's crosshairs.' Krell, who had her authorship stripped from AB379 during the bill's sharp-elbowed journey, contested that argument. 'I would love to see ICE go after sex traffickers, but they're not. And this bill won't change that,' she said. AB379's 51 registered supporters, including 25 law enforcement agencies and unions, as well as seven cities and some survivor groups, have also dismissed the immigration concerns as catastrophizing while shifting focus onto the bill's other changes. 'The most important aspect of this bill is creating a felony around solicitation,' said Yasmin Vafa, executive director of the Washington D.C.-based nonprofit Rights4Girls, an AB379 cosponsor. Vafa testified during committee hearings that this was a racial justice issue, involving affluent white male buyers and Black girl victims. 'If we were talking about white girls, this wouldn't be a debate.' In California, the federally funded National Human Trafficking Hotline said it identified 1,261 acts of sex-related trafficking among callers in 2024, a 10-year high and 48.5% higher than in 2015, the earliest year for which the hotline provided annual totals. The hotline, operated by the national anti-trafficking nonprofit Polaris, said its callers also reported the highest numbers of sex-trafficking cases occurring on the street (122) and in residences (111) since at least 2015 last year. According to the Human Trafficking Institute, California's federal courts saw 14 new sex-trafficking prosecutions in 2023, the second most behind Texas (21). Federal courts are where more trafficking prosecutions occur. Both the Human Trafficking Institute and Polaris caution that their numbers do not reflect the true prevalence of sex trafficking. Krell, a former deputy attorney general who prosecuted trafficking cases in the California Department of Justice, said she made sure AB379 only brings back the loitering misdemeanor in a way that can be used against sex buyers, not the sellers. 'It's targeted at those who are looking to buy,' said Krell, who has also introduced bills this session that would require social media companies to remove more child sexual abuse material and expand relief for people who were convicted of crimes as a result of being trafficked. 'It doesn't go after sex workers and it definitely doesn't go after victims.' But AB379 does make sex workers eligible for $1,000 fines that would go into a special fund for prosecutors and diversion programs like the one run by Community Against Sexual Harm, a bill co-sponsor and a survivor-led organization started by a Sacramento police officer in 2013. Republicans in the Legislature rallied around AB379, and have used sex trafficking as a cudgel to hammer away at the supermajority party and enhance their influence. 'I have to say, I'm tired of excuses,' Sen. Suzette Martinez Valladares, R-Santa Clarita, said before the Senate's July 14 floor vote. 'We should all be able to agree on this. There is no moral or rational argument against protecting children from being bought and sold for sex.' While Democratic lawmakers raised concerns about reviving a loitering law that was first used against the state's indigenous residents in the 1800s, all but seven voted for AB379, with five abstentions, and expressed their wish that the issues be addressed after it became law. Wiener, who said he would have voted for AB379 if it was just about soliciting teens for sex and who said he endured slurs and death threats in the years he worked to repeal loitering, said he would not be the one to clean up the Legislature's 'mess.' Block, of the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, characterized AB379's success as an instance where narrative overpowered the facts. 'In the times that we're in with the federal administration attacking California and many other states, perhaps this was a way of saying, 'Look, we're doing something about sex trafficking,' she said. 'That is something that is hard for legislators to vote against.'
USA Today
26-06-2025
- Politics
- USA Today
We survived sex trafficking. Don't protect men who exploit women like us.
California must crack down on predatory sex buyers to stop trafficking. Survivors like us have fought for accountability that reaches not just our traffickers but also men who used us like objects. In May, the California Capitol erupted in acrimonious debate over Assembly Bill 379, a proposal to make purchasing a 16- or 17-year-old for sex punishable as a felony. Now, opponents are trying to weaken a separate, equally important piece of that bill, to make it a misdemeanor to loiter with the intent to purchase commercial sex. California must crack down on predatory sex buyers to stop sex trafficking. For decades, survivors like us have fought for accountability that reaches not just our traffickers, but also the men who bought and used us like objects. These buyers, the ones who made the demand for human flesh profitable, have operated with near impunity, shielded by stigma that falls harder on victims than perpetrators. AB 379, originally authored by Assemblymember Maggy Krell, D-Sacramento, and now authored by Assemblymember Nick Schultz, D-Burbank, is a historic opportunity to change that. Don't shield men who buy sex Standing in the way are opponents attempting to weaponize the federal government's cruel deportation sweeps and legitimate public fear to weaken this vital legislation. They claim that AB 379's loitering provision should be removed because it would create a new deportable offense. That argument is legally doubtful. Following its recommendation would shield sex buyers statewide at the expense of victims of the sex trade. It also would deprive California of an important tool for getting a handle on the sex trafficking industry. That is not safety nor is it justice. That would be an abdication of lawmakers' responsibility totheir constituents. Opinion: I work with sex trafficking victims. Here's how Diddy's trial could help them. Let us be clear: AB 379 does not target undocumented people or victims in the sex trade. It purposefully targets those who knowingly and willfully seek out vulnerable human beings, some of whom are immigrants themselves, for exploitation through paid rape. It is unconscionable to use the trauma of immigrant families as a political shield for sex buyers − many of whom are affluent White men. And yet, that's what's happening. We were badly abused as victims of sex trafficking This is the truth that the public and our elected officials must face: The sex trade is not 'empowerment.' On the street, it is almost all the result of trafficking. It is violence, and the buyers are not harmless 'johns' ‒ they are predators who rely on the silence of society and the shame of survivors to keep operating freely. Buyers call us names like 'meat,' 'holes,' 'property,' 'whore,' 'slut,' 'worthless,' 'slave" and much worse than can be comfortably described here for the everyday reader. We've been choked and strangled, degraded, urinated on, burned, beaten and stabbed. We've been robbed, raped with physical body parts and objects, spit on and laughed at. We've been thrown out of moving vehicles naked and scared, and we've been left for dead on multiple occasions of severe assault. Opinion: A sex trafficking survivor nearly died trying to get out. How she turned her life around. We've been told we were 'lucky' anyone would pay for us. We've been told that they could do anything to us and no one would care, that they could kill us and no one would come looking. We were children. Or barely adults. And every name we were called sank into our skin like a scar we still carry. Failing to hold buyers accountable only worsens these harms and creates more demand and need for supply. AB379's reinstatement of the loitering piece for the buyer is not radical. It is justice for everyone being trafficked and abandoned on our streets. To every state senator still on the fence: We are not asking for pity. We are demanding protection, accountability and truth. We're asking you not to forget us just because the politics are complicated. We survived the buyers who raped and abused us, insulted us, filmed us, and discarded us like garbage. Now we are surviving a political process that threatens to discard us yet again. Please don't let that happen. We've come too far. Stay strong, stand with survivors and pass AB 379 intact, and with the survivor-led accountability it was built to deliver. Marjorie Saylor, Ashley Faison-Maddox and Christina Rangel are survivor leaders with lived experience of sex trafficking in California.
Yahoo
03-06-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Opinion - Why we left California: Its legislature put crazy woke ideology ahead of kids' wellbeing
In 2019, my family packed our belongings and left California, the state we had called home for most of our lives. Why? Well, high taxes were part of the equation. But more than anything, we left to protect our then 10-year-old daughter from a system that no longer made sense— or felt safe. One moment crystallized it: sitting in the pediatrician's waiting room, we learned that once our daughter turned 12, we would no longer have access to her medical records without her consent. That's not parental empowerment. That's state intrusion — and it was just the beginning. California's unraveling isn't just about affordability or policy overreach. It is also about a government that has deprioritized the safety, dignity, and wellbeing of children in favor of a progressive-left agenda. Take Assembly Bill 90, which requires community colleges and state universities to create overnight parking programs for the 4.2 percent of homeless students in their systems. On the surface, it sounds compassionate. In reality, it is a stark admission of policy failure. In 2016, California adopted the federal 'Housing First' model, which promises permanent housing units — without preconditions — to all struggling with homelessness. This policy was overlaid onto a system that already ranked 49th in the nation in housing units per resident, and that builds just 40 percent of the affordable units it needs annually. Instead of fixing these systemic failures, AB 90 effectively turned parking lots into student housing, exposing students to crime, isolation, and instability. Assemblymember Darshana Patel (D) stood virtually alone in raising student safety concerns. In a party-line, 6-2 vote, the bill passed committee. Then there's Assembly Bill 379, written to increase penalties for child sex traffickers. Unfortunately, that version didn't survive. Progressive-left lawmakers stripped the bill of protections for 16- and 17-year-olds — the very age group most targeted by traffickers, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. California's majority party couldn't bring itself to protect minors from sexual exploitation, because somehow this apparently conflicted with their political narrative. The same pattern shows up in school sports. Two common-sense bills intended to safeguard fairness and safety for female athletes were killed in committee. These bills would have barred biological males from competing against girls— something California Gov. Gavin Newsom himself has admitted to be 'deeply unfair.' Decades of research and a 2020 study published in Sports Medicine confirm the physical advantages biological males have over females, even after hormone therapy. To refuse to acknowledge this reality is to deny basic science. It isn't just unfair but dangerous to have males competing in girls' and women's sports, especially contact sports. All this is happening while California funnels billions into climate initiatives and green infrastructure despite ranking 41st in K-12 education and 39th in school safety. California also leads the nation in youth depression and self-harm, according to the Centers for Disease Control. And let's not forget that during the COVID-19 pandemic, California kept students out of classrooms longer than almost any other state. That decision caused historic learning loss— particularly among low-income students. To date, there has been no meaningful academic recovery plan. What's the matter with California? To sum up: Parents can't access their children's medical records without the children's permission; students' dorms are the backseats of their Honda Civics; vulnerable teens go unprotected from traffickers; female athletes are deliberately put at risk. These aren't glitches. They are all symptoms of a deeper collapse — a moral and political refusal to prioritize the wellbeing of children over ideology. California once led the nation in education, innovation, and opportunity. Now, despite its natural beauty and economic power, it has become a cautionary tale about what happens when a government trades responsibility for radicalism. That's why my family joined the hundreds of thousands of net residents who have moved away to other states in recent years. Unless its leaders correct course — putting kids first and politics second — California won't just keep failing her children. She will also set a dangerous precedent for the rest of America. Michele Steeb is the founder of Free Up Foundation and author of 'Answers Behind the RED DOOR: Battling the Homeless Epidemic,' based on her 13 years as CEO of northern California's largest program for homeless women and children. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
03-06-2025
- Health
- The Hill
Why we left California: Its legislature put crazy woke ideology ahead of kids' wellbeing
In 2019, my family packed our belongings and left California, the state we had called home for most of our lives. Why? Well, high taxes were part of the equation. But more than anything, we left to protect our then 10-year-old daughter from a system that no longer made sense— or felt safe. One moment crystallized it: sitting in the pediatrician's waiting room, we learned that once our daughter turned 12, we would no longer have access to her medical records without her consent. That's not parental empowerment. That's state intrusion — and it was just the beginning. California's unraveling isn't just about affordability or policy overreach. It is also about a government that has deprioritized the safety, dignity, and wellbeing of children in favor of a progressive-left agenda. Take Assembly Bill 90, which requires community colleges and state universities to create overnight parking programs for the 4.2 percent of homeless students in their systems. On the surface, it sounds compassionate. In reality, it is a stark admission of policy failure. In 2016, California adopted the federal 'Housing First' model, which promises permanent housing units — without preconditions — to all struggling with homelessness. This policy was overlaid onto a system that already ranked 49th in the nation in housing units per resident, and that builds just 40 percent of the affordable units it needs annually. Instead of fixing these systemic failures, AB 90 effectively turned parking lots into student housing, exposing students to crime, isolation, and instability. Assemblymember Darshana Patel (D) stood virtually alone in raising student safety concerns. In a party-line, 6-2 vote, the bill passed committee. Then there's Assembly Bill 379, written to increase penalties for child sex traffickers. Unfortunately, that version didn't survive. Progressive-left lawmakers stripped the bill of protections for 16- and 17-year-olds — the very age group most targeted by traffickers, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. California's majority party couldn't bring itself to protect minors from sexual exploitation, because somehow this apparently conflicted with their political narrative. The same pattern shows up in school sports. Two common-sense bills intended to safeguard fairness and safety for female athletes were killed in committee. These bills would have barred biological males from competing against girls— something California Gov. Gavin Newsom himself has admitted to be 'deeply unfair.' Decades of research and a 2020 study published in Sports Medicine confirm the physical advantages biological males have over females, even after hormone therapy. To refuse to acknowledge this reality is to deny basic science. It isn't just unfair but dangerous to have males competing in girls' and women's sports, especially contact sports. All this is happening while California funnels billions into climate initiatives and green infrastructure despite ranking 41st in K-12 education and 39th in school safety. California also leads the nation in youth depression and self-harm, according to the Centers for Disease Control. And let's not forget that during the COVID-19 pandemic, California kept students out of classrooms longer than almost any other state. That decision caused historic learning loss— particularly among low-income students. To date, there has been no meaningful academic recovery plan. What's the matter with California? To sum up: Parents can't access their children's medical records without the children's permission; students' dorms are the backseats of their Honda Civics; vulnerable teens go unprotected from traffickers; female athletes are deliberately put at risk. These aren't glitches. They are all symptoms of a deeper collapse — a moral and political refusal to prioritize the wellbeing of children over ideology. California once led the nation in education, innovation, and opportunity. Now, despite its natural beauty and economic power, it has become a cautionary tale about what happens when a government trades responsibility for radicalism. That's why my family joined the hundreds of thousands of net residents who have moved away to other states in recent years. Unless its leaders correct course — putting kids first and politics second — California won't just keep failing her children. She will also set a dangerous precedent for the rest of America. Michele Steeb is the founder of Free Up Foundation and author of 'Answers Behind the RED DOOR: Battling the Homeless Epidemic,' based on her 13 years as CEO of northern California's largest program for homeless women and children.
Yahoo
07-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
California Sex Trafficking Fight Erupts Over Punishment for Soliciting Minors
It's rare to see politicians of any stripe fight against sex-trafficking overreach—or any tough-on-crime gestures, really. In California, Democrats have been finding out what happens when you do. After pushing back somewhat against an overly carceral bill targeting prostitution customers, they were tarred by Republicans as having voted "to protect predators" and being "a threat to our kids' safety." It's become "the biggest controversy Sacramento has seen in a while," notes The Sacramento Bee. Now, of course, Democrats are backtracking. Solicitation Law Changes Proposed The bill—an amended version of which passed the California Assembly on May 1—originally came from Sacramento Rep. Maggy Krell, herself a Democrat and a former prosecutor. Krell worked on a failed case against Backpage and then wrote a book about it, so being tough on prostitution is basically her whole shtick now. But Assembly Bill 379, introduced in February, is a bad bill. It would create a new prostitution loitering law—the kind of thing that lets cops target people for merely looking like they might be about to engage in prostitution. And it would institute a mandatory $1,000 "Survivor Support Fund" fine on anyone convicted of solicitation or loitering for solicitation (in addition to any other fines they might get). But those aren't the controversial bits—most lawmakers in the state's Assembly were OK with those parts (alas). The big controversy concerns punishments for soliciting someone aged 16 or 17 for sex. Krell's proposal would amend a law passed last year that treats solicitation of a minor differently based on whether a minor being solicited is over or under age 16. Misdemeanor or Felony? That 2024 law raised potential penalties for solicitation of a minor, moving it from a misdemeanor to a possible felony. But soliciting a minor for prostitution can only be a felony in cases where the offender is over age 18 and the person solicited is under age 16, or under age 18 and proven to be a victim of human trafficking. And even under such circumstances, authorities still have some discretion. The 2024 law made it a "wobbler" offense, with prosecutors and judges able to charge and punish it as either a misdemeanor or a felony. Basically, the 2024 law was an acknowledgement that the broad parameters of the crime here—soliciting someone who is under age 18 for sex—don't tell us everything we need to know about moral culpability. There's a big difference between a 40-year-old man actively soliciting someone he knows to be 14 years old for sex and a 16-year-old soliciting another 16-year-old, for instance. Or between someone soliciting a minor they know is being coerced into prostitution and a 22-year-old soliciting a 17-year-old whom they might reasonably believe to be 18 and acting independently. Under Krell's proposal, any act of solicitation "by a defendant who is 18 years of age or older" could be punished as a felony when the person solicited was a minor (or, as it goes, a cop pretending to be one). An amended version of the bill that passed the Assembly last week would have done away with Krell's proposed changes to the way solicitation of a minor is punished. Republicans, along with Krell and a few Democrats, opposed this amended version, but most Democrats in the state Assembly were on board with the change. "Krell is a former prosecutor, and prosecutors tend to be hammers that see every problem as a nail," suggested Sacramento Bee op-ed writer Robin Epley, noting that the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California is opposed to the bill as originally written. Under Krell's version, "a 19- or 20-year-old dating a 16- or 17-year-old" could be charged with a felony for buying a date dinner, since prostitution doesn't require the exchange of money, just anything of value, Epley pointed out. "I believe it would be used as a cudgel to persecute out-groups—including families that disapprove of queer or interracial relationships." "What the Democrats are trying to do here is keep some common sense written into state law so that judges and prosecutors aren't forced to treat every case the same," Epley said. Myths, Mudslinging, and Backpedaling So much for common sense. It seems Democrats are now reversing course, after their pushback received a lot of pushback. "Democratic leaders in the California Assembly announced on Tuesday that…the proposed felony will be added back into AB 379, backpedaling on moves the two made last week," KCRA reported. Their one condition is that "the felony will not apply when the adult offender is within three years of the age of the minor." Conservatives had been quick to portray Democrats as having a soft spot for predators and of not wanting to protect kids. Democrats think "buying minors for sex…isn't that bad" in some circumstances, wrote Zachary Faria at the Washington Examiner—as if nothing counts as being condemned and punished unless it's a felony. Of course, a misdemeanor offense is still a crime, and it will still net you a criminal record and all sorts of consequences. As it stands, someone convicted of solicitation of a minor aged 16 or 17 can be sent to prison for up to a year and fined up to $10,000. And under the amended version of Krell's bill, they could also be required to pay an additional $1,000 Survivor Fund fine. Funnily enough, those supporting Krell's proposal aren't actually as tough-on-crime as they're purporting to be. Supporters of Krell's version have suggested that it should always be a felony to solicit a minor. But her proposal would have merely made it possible to charge a felony. It would still have left solicitation of a minor—whether the person solicited was over or under age 16—as a wobbler crime capable of being treated as a misdemeanor or a felony. This isn't the only misleading way that Krell's proposal has been portrayed. "We need to say loud and clear that if you're under 18—a child, a minor—that the person who is buying that person should be charged as a felony," said Krell. "Sex without consent is rape. The exchange of money doesn't change that." But the crime of solicitation does not require sex or any physical activity at all to take place. It doesn't even require an actual minor to exist—many, if not most, cases charged involve stings conducted by undercover police pretending to be under age 18. Solicitation is essentially a speech crime, and equating it to rape is false and inflammatory. An adult who offers a minor money for sex and then engages in sex with them can still be charged with unlawful sexual intercourse, lewd acts on a child, or other sex crimes, regardless of how the solicitation law is written. So, Krell's implication that the current solicitation law lets rapists off the hook is unfounded. And unlawful sexual intercourse (a.k.a. statutory rape) in California is also punishable as either a misdemeanor or a felony, depending on the circumstances. Prostitution Pre-Crime Bit Is Bad, Too "Sadly, Sacramento seems to have lost the capacity to have a rational legislative conversation about sex trafficking—or just about anything when it comes to criminal justice," wrote The Sacramento Bee editorial board earlier this week. The explosive, divisive debate over how solicitation of an older teen should be punished has overshadowed any consideration about the loitering for solicitation proposal in A.B. 379. California repealed a similar law in 2022, amid concerns that the bill let law enforcement harass certain types of women—poor, black, transgender, etc.—merely for existing in public spaces. The new prostitution loitering law would, of course, recreate these same kinds of harms, only this time it would be used to target alleged sex customers instead of sex workers. The loitering for solicitation offense has the potential to be a major infringement on due process, since it's essentially a prostitution pre-crime offense. Police can use it to stalk and arrest anyone they say looked like they were getting ready to solicit sex. Any prudence Democrats showed by pushing back against parts of Krell's bill is tempered by their willingness to create a new crime that could be every bit as overreaching and dangerous to civil liberties. To really do the right thing, they should scrap this bill altogether. Instead, it seems that they've decided to cave almost entirely. Follow-Up on OneTaste Trial As the OneTaste trial gets underway this week, a member of Congress is reportedly trying to intervene. "The representative has written to new FBI director Kash Patel," objecting to the way the case was handled by an FBI agent, according to The Daily Mail. The lead FBI investigator on the case against Nicole Daedone and Rachel Cherwitz—former executives at the orgasmic meditation company OneTaste—was Special Agent Elliott McGinnis, who is accused by lawyers for Daedone and Cherwitz of a range of misconduct. Read more about McGinnis and the case here. " has seen a letter to FBI director Patel from a Member of Congress – who is also a member of the House Judiciary Committee and a former law enforcement official – 'seeking answers' about the special agent," the Mail reported. The letter shared by the Mail accuses McGinnis of "a pattern of misconduct" and actions that "represent a fundamental corruption of the investigative process and failure of agent accountability." Prosecutors have already had to admit that evidence vetted by the FBI in this case was not authentic, as this newsletter noted in March. "Most disturbing is the systematic effort to transform Netflix-created content into federal evidence," it states. "This isn't just overreach—it's the deliberate fabrication of a criminal case through entertainment media." More Sex & Tech News Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin just signed into law the Consumer Data Protection Act, which "requires social media companies in the Commonwealth to verify the age of users and limit social media use for kids under the age of 16 to one hour per app per day," per ABC 13 News. "While it's unclear how exactly, the apps would block usage after an hour." Age verification and STD treatment bills pass the North Carolina House. A measure that passed the North Carolina House of Representatives yesterday "mandates that social media platforms delete accounts operated by users younger than 14 years old," according to ABC 11 News. "It permits 14- and 15-year-old users to join networks only with expressed parental consent. Websites and phone apps would also be required to implement age verification." Another bill passed by the North Carolina House on Tuesday would disallow minors to consent to treatment for sexually transmitted diseases without parental approval, unless the minors are 16 or older and "the disease can be treated with a prescription with a duration of 10 days or less." The bill would also require parental approval before minors could be treated for alcohol or substance abuse problems or "emotional disturbance." A similar law is under consideration in Florida and was recently passed by the Florida House. RIP Skype. The original Zoom shut down for good on Monday. "The decision to scrap Skype, announced in March, caps a remarkable 21-year run for a software that for many embodied the early values of the open internet," wrote Leo Sands at The Washington Post. "It was mostly free, had a user-friendly interface and made it easier for people to connect across the world. In its heyday, Skype had over 300 million users." 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