Florida State Senator Lauren Book Takes Action Over Hacker Selling Her Nude Images Since 2020: “I Can Do Something”
Lauren Book, a state senator, has often told the story of how her nanny sexually molested her for six years as a child. She turned her struggle into a lifelong commitment to helping those who had been abused.
She has now been victimized once more after learning that naked photographs of herself had been stolen and then bought and exchanged online since 2020.
Legislation To Strengthen The State's Revenge Porn Law
As the pain returned, so did her spirit to fight. Florida State Senator Lauren Book, 37, responds with legislation to strengthen the state's revenge porn law, a new policy aiming to prevent others from being victimized.
On Tuesday, the bill proposed by Book gets its first committee hearing.
It would make it a crime to buy, sell, or trade sexually explicit photographs stolen from someone's phone or other digital devices, strengthening Florida's revenge porn law. Disseminating sexually explicit photographs that have been manipulated or generated, commonly known as deepfakes, would be a felony.
"I hate that this happened to me," Book, a Democrat, told the Associated Press, "but I'll take it because I know that I can do something about it."
Book had images of her and her husband on her phone, and she said she shared a post-operation photo of her lumpectomy scar with a friend.
Despite the fact that she had no idea how the pictures were stolen from her computer, she speculated that they may have been hacked from her digital storage.
Investigators told her, however, the images the teenager used to try to extort her were sent from virtual private networks in Sweden and Russia.
In a phone interview with Associated Press, the state's Senate minority leader expressed her anger with the foreign trade and selling of pictures stolen from people without their knowledge. Book described it as a sick, perverse subculture that pays more for photographs of celebrities and government figures but also victimizes women who aren't well-known.
The trauma was made worse by the conversations that took place on the website.
"Let's try to obtain some rape videos because they were reading about who I was and talking about how I'm a rape survivor," Book remarked.
"Is it possible for some of her to be raped, killed, or tortured? What about some of that?"
After years of working hard to heal herself and restore her life, running a non-profit to help victims, getting married, having children and winning her Senate seat, and now learning that private photos of her own body had found their way all over the web "brought out all of the stuff," Book told the AP.
In 2007, Book founded the group Lauren's Kids. The organization's mission is to help people who have been sexually abused in childhood and works to prevent future abuse.
When Book was 17, she found the courage to go to Tallahassee and persuade lawmakers and the governor at the time, Jeb Bush.
A bill requiring HIV tests for rape suspects.She's now a 37-year-old senator who considers herself blessed to be in a position to fight back, having the resources means to hire an attorney to remove photographs from websites. Many people do not.
Despite the fact that the abuse she suffered in her adolescence had a beginning and an end - the nanny was prosecuted and imprisoned - this case will last a lifetime.
This article is owned by Latin Post.
Written by: Jess Smith
WATCH: Florida Senator Lauren Book Fighting Back Over Nude Images Stolen From Her - CBS Miami