The Arizona House has approved legislation designed to crack down on so-called revenge porn.
The measure is aimed at situations when a relationship ends-- usually badly-- and the jilted partner puts naked photos of the other person on the Internet. Photos that were clearly meant not to be shared.
Rep. J.D. Mesnard, R-Chandler, said that retribution needs to be made illegal.
"As technology changes, people find new ways of hurting other people," Mesnard said. "And rather than be behind the curve, we wanted to actually step out in front. Smart phones are relatively recent phenomenon. But as time moves forward it's really easy to see how this was going to become a growing problem."
Mesnard got a version signed into law in 2014 only to have it challenged in federal court as an overly broad violation of the First Amendment. He recrafted it last year but it never got a final legislative vote. This new version is identical to that one.
But Mesnard said it's not as strong as he originally wanted because it requires prosecutors to prove someone intended to hurt the other person.
"My fear might be they could make the case, 'Well, I didn't mean to harm them; I just thought it'd be funny, or I just did it for kicks.'" he said of potential violators. "And then if they get off on a technicality like that, it's unfortunate because the other person's life is still destroyed. They're still emotionally distraught or ruined. And so the harm has still been done."
Wednesday's unanimous House vote sends the measure to the Senate.