Today is Sine Die, the last day of the 2014 Legislative Session. For the past 60 days, legislators and state leaders have worked tirelessly to enact legislation intended to improve Floridians’ lives. My office has worked closely with the Legislature to pass legislation that will better protect consumers, crack down on human trafficking, and remove deadly synthetic drugs from store shelves. In order to better protect consumers from data breaches, my office worked with the Legislature on the Florida Information Protection Act. Identity theft wreaks havoc on individuals’ lives and can have long-lasting effects. This legislation will better protect Floridians’ personal information by ensuring that businesses and governmental entities take certain measures to protect personal information and report data breaches to consumers. The legislation will require a 30-day notice to my office when a significant data breach has occurred. I thank Senator John Thrasher, Representative Larry Metz, and the entire Senate and House of Representatives for their support of this important consumer protection legislation. We also worked on legislation intended to provide much needed care options for human trafficking victims. Human trafficking enslaves children, women and men, and Florida ranks third in the nation in the number of calls to the national human trafficking hotline. The average age that Americans are first used for commercial sex is 12 to14, and we must do everything in our power to identify and help victims of trafficking. The legislation I worked on with the Legislature establishes a Statewide Council on Human Trafficking within my office, which I will chair. The legislation establishes a comprehensive approach for the certification and funding of safe houses. It also requires the adoption of screening tools to help in the identification of victims and requires those working with victims to provide appropriate specialized care. Lastly, it calls for a study on sexual exploitation of children in Florida. I thank the Senate and the House of Representatives for passing legislation that will enhance efforts already underway to ensure that victims of human trafficking can voluntarily reside in a caring environment that allows them to feel safe while receiving much needed care. Finally, we continued our efforts to keep dangerous synthetic drugs off of Florida’s store shelves. The Controlled Substance Bill adds six additional substances to Schedule 1 of controlled substances and adds three extremely lethal synthetic compounds, which are commonly found in the street drug “molly,” to the trafficking statute. The bill was sponsored by Representative Clay Ingram and Senator Rob Bradley; I thank them and the entire Senate and House of Representatives for their support of this bill. It will give law enforcement and prosecutors the tools they need to keep dangerous synthetic drugs and out of the hands of our youth. In closing, hundreds of people in Florida’s Panhandle have been devastated by the storms this week. I ask that we keep them in our thoughts and prayers.
AG Pam Bondi's Statement On Passage Of Florida Information Protection Act, WCTV
Attorney General Pam Bondi Presents $88,487 Check to Sant La Haitian Neighborhood Center, Capital Soup