by Dave Williams | Jul 9, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., and Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., introduced bipartisan legislation Tuesday to strengthen support for victims of human trafficking.
Ossoff chairs the Senate’s Human Rights Subcommittee, and Blackburn is the ranking Republican on the panel.
The bill would give the Justice Department’s Office for Victims of Crime more flexibility in funding for programs that serve human trafficking victims and help increase training and technical assistance for organizations that receive federal grants to help those victims.
“Human trafficking in Georgia and nationwide is a crisis,” Ossoff said. “That’s why Sen. Blackburn and I are introducing this bipartisan bill to strengthen support and protections for victims of trafficking.”
“The modern-day slave trade of human trafficking is a $150 billion a year global industry that is devastating our communities,” Blackburn added. “By passing the Supporting Victims of Human Trafficking Act, the Department of Justice’s Office for Victims of Crime will be more responsive to the needs of organizations serving survivors of human trafficking.”
Ossoff and Blackburn also teamed up on the REPORT Act, which President Joe Biden signed into law in May. The measure requires websites and social media platforms to report crimes involving child trafficking to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Companies that knowingly and willfully fail to report child sex abuse material on their sites will face increased fines.
The new bill is being backed by key organizations that support victims of human trafficking, including Hope for Justice, Street Grace, Wellspring Living, 3Strands Global Foundation, Polaris, and Thistle Farms.
by Dave Williams | Jul 8, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – The condition of Georgia’s infrastructure received a decidedly mediocre grade of “C+” Monday in a report released by the Georgia section of the American Society of Civil Engineers.
“This is a wakeup call,” Tim Echols, vice chairman of the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC), said during a news conference at the state Capitol. “We need to get better.”
Georgia ports achieved the highest score – “B+ – among 14 categories the report examined. The conditions of the state’s bridges, freight rail system, energy infrastructure, and schools came in next with “B” grades.
In fact, Georgia scored above the national report card in 12 of the 14 categories the report examined.
But the state of transit in the Peach State rated lowest, receiving a grade of “D.” As many urban policymakers in Georgia have complained for years, the state has historically underinvested in transit, according to the report.
State Rep. Vance Smith, a former commissioner of the Georgia Department of Transportation and former chairman of the House Transportation Committee, praised the “C+” grade the report gave the condition of aviation in Georgia as an improvement.
The General Assembly has stepped up funding of the state’s general aviation airports in recent years, many located in predominantly rural areas. Smith said improvements at those airports are helping attract businesses to Georgia that aren’t interested in having to cope with Atlanta’s traffic congestion.
“That’s economic development for these (small) communities,” he said. “It spreads the economy across our whole state.”
Echols said Georgia’s relatively strong showing in energy infrastructure stems from last spring’s PSC vote approving Georgia Power’s request for 6,600 megawatts in additional electrical generating capacity as well as the completion of the nuclear expansion at Plant Vogtle in May.
“Georgia has extra energy here,” he said.
The condition of drinking water in Georgia received a grade of “C+” on the report, a mediocre showing that was dramatically demonstrated when major water main breaks in the city of Atlanta in late May forced an emergency declaration and disrupted service for five days.
“While there is a lot to be proud of, there is still room for progress, especially for water systems that serve Georgia’s growing population,” said Julie Secrist, who chaired the committee of engineers that prepared the report.
“As more people and businesses move here, these life-sustaining systems need increased funding to grow, improve, and become more resilient to new and ongoing threats.”
by Dave Williams | Jul 8, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Georgia House Speaker Jon Burns Monday announced the creation of a special subcommittee to consider funding recommendations aimed at improving safety in the state’s prison system.
The panel will function as a subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee.
The Georgia Department of Corrections hired a consultant last month to conduct an assessment of Georgia prisons.
Gov. Brian Kemp announced the hiring of Chicago-based Guidehouse Inc. a day after an inmate at Smith State Prison in Glennville shot and killed a food-service worker before turning the gun on himself. An investigation revealed the inmate had been involved in a “personal relationship” with the worker.
More than 3,500 assaults between inmates occurred in state prisons between 2021 and last year, according to state prison data, while 98 inmates were killed during that time.
“The General Assembly has placed significant emphasis on improving the safety, security and conditions of our state-operated corrections facilities,” Burns, R-Newington, said Monday.
“With Governor Kemp’s ongoing assessment of Georgia’s prisons, we want to ensure we are prepared to take immediate action when subsequent recommendations and appropriations requests are delivered in January or during the interim.”
The new subcommittee will be headed by Rep. Matt Hatchett, R-Dublin, who chairs the full House Appropriations Committee. The panel will include five Republicans and two Democrats.
by Dave Williams | Jul 5, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – A Warner Robins man has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for shooting at federal and local law enforcement officers trying to take him into custody on felony warrants.
Renaldo Smith, 33, had previously pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer and one count of using a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence.
Smith was wanted on state felony warrants when the U.S. Marshals Service learned in January of last year that he was at a home in Warner Robins. When marshals tried to execute a search warrant there, Smith fired multiple shots from inside the residence.
The Warner Robins Police Department’s SWAT team then arrived on the scene, and a police negotiation team communicated with Smith for hours to try to get him to stand down peacefully. When that didn’t work, police deployed pepper spray into the home, and Smith was taken into custody after an exchange of gunfire.
Inside the residence, police recovered an automatic pistol and a rifle.
“Renaldo Smith put the lives of many people at risk when he opened fire on law enforcement officers attempting to take him safety into custody,” U.S. Attorney Peter Leary said Friday. “These highly trained officers are to be commended for their display of bravery in the line of duty and for safely bringing the defendant into custody.”
Smith had been convicted of several prior felonies, including robbery by force and possession of methamphetamine.
by Dave Williams | Jul 5, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Georgia lawmakers may or may not develop legislation this summer and fall to establish state standards for regulating emerging artificial intelligence (AI) technology.
But one certainty that became clear from the inaugural hearing of a state Senate study committee late last month is that AI will dramatically affect a wide range of government policy areas, from economic development to health care, education, public safety and transportation.
“It’s going to impact and change things like never before,” said Sen. John Albers, R-Roswell, chairman of the Senate Study Committee on Artificial Development.
One public policy area already being affected by AI is elections. So-called “deep fakes” already are cropping up in political ads, which digitally alter a candidate’s physical appearance or voice to say or do something the actual person did not say or do.
With deep fakes in political advertising among the early manifestations of AI, some state lawmakers have made the practice the focus of the General Assembly’s first attempt to rein in the industry.
A bill introduced in the Georgia House of Representatives this year called for criminalizing the use of deep fakes in political ads. House Bill 986 overwhelmingly cleared the House only to fizzle in the state Senate.
The effects AI technology is expected to have on public policy already are starting to become evident. In the public safety arena, AI is already capable to picking up 911 calls and dispatching responders, Albers said.
“Nobody will ever be on hold and not have an answer immediately,” he said.
Likewise, the huge role AI will play in transportation is being demonstrated initially by the development of autonomous vehicles, drone deliveries, and technology that allows cities to manage the flow of traffic. Eventually, AI will drive transportation planners’ decisions on where to widen highways or build bridges.
Albers said AI also will revolutionize education.
“We’ve been teaching the same way for 85 years,” he said. “The world has changed eight time over during that time.”
In health care, the data consolidation capabilities of AI could help researchers cure cancer, Albers said.
While much of the General Assembly’s attention on AI is focused on its public policy applications, the legislature also could actively encourage the private sector with incentives to foster use of the technology as an economic development tool.
“We have a real opportunity to create a massive number of (business) startups in this state,” said Pascal Van Hentenryck, a professor at Georgia Tech, director of Tech-AI, the university’s AI hub, and a member of the study committee.
Albers said whatever the General Assembly does in the way of regulating AI also must have an equity component.
“We don’t want to exclude people in this,” he said. ‘We want to defeat the digital divide.”
Albers said the study committee will hold seven or eight hearings this summer and fall, including some away from the Capitol. One of those sessions will be held in Augusta, home to the Georgia Cyber Innovation & Training Center.
The committee is due to release recommendations for proposed legislation by Dec. 1. If no legislation is forthcoming, the panel will file a report to the full Senate.
