Flora’s Child Protection Bill is Signed

On Monday, September 23, local Assemblyman Heath Flora announced that his bill AB 1892, which protects children from child abuse and human trafficking, was signed into law by the Governor.

AB 1892 was inspired by Flora’s experience last year when he partnered with the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office on a major undercover operation to track and arrest criminals who targeted children for sexual exploitation.

“Today is one of those rare days as an elected official where we get to see the actual fruits of our labor,” Flora said of the bill signing. “What started as a ride-along with the sheriff turned into a year-long legislative process to add another tool to their toolbox to help law enforcement go after these predators and traffickers.”

Current law allows a judge to authorize the wiretapping of electronic communications with probable cause where the suspect is committing or about to commit certain crimes related to murder, kidnapping, and other serious crimes. However, child sexual exploitation was not on that list, until now.

“Some of the text messages and other electronic correspondence that we saw between suspects who were planning to sexually exploit children were extremely disturbing,” Flora said of the undercover operation. “These people, if you can even call them people, are talking openly and in explicit detail about what they plan to do to these innocent children.”

AB 1892 (Flora) would add child pornography and exploitation-related crimes to the list of crimes eligible for expedited search warrants if a judge finds sufficient evidence of guilt. This expands the options but preserves judicial discretion.

“To keep it simple, AB 1892 gives judges the authority to expedite search warrants if there is probable cause that child exploitation is taking place,” Flora explained of the bill. “We had a companion bill that didn’t make it through the legislature, so we’re very pleased that AB 1892 went through the process and became law.”

AB 1892 would expedite the search warrant application process, allowing the court to issue a warrant authorizing the wiretapping of telephone or electronic communications of child sex offenders if a judge finds there is sufficient reason to believe that a person is committing, has committed, or is about to commit a crime that violates certain laws relating to child pornography and exploitation.

Assembly Member Flora serves the communities of Acampo, Copperopolis, Del Rio, Denair, Empire, Escalon, Farmington, Galt, Hickman, Hughson, Ione, La Grange, Lathrop, Linden, Lockeford, Lodi, Manteca, Oakdale, Rancho Murieta, Ripon, Riverbank , Salida, Waterford and Wilton.