ATLANTA — It could soon become a serious crime in Georgia to use AI apps to create obscene, computer-generated images of real people.
State senators considered a proposal Monday to create the crime of “virtual peeping” by using artificial intelligence to virtually undress people.
The technology would have been viewed as science fiction several years ago but now it has become a “nightmare” for victims whose privacy is violated, said state Sen. Bo Hatchett, R-Cornelia, the sponsor of Senate Bill 398.
“You shouldn’t have to be afraid to post an image of yourself online. You shouldn’t be afraid to have a picture of yourself in a yearbook and have that photograph used in the ways that people are using them now,” Hatchett said. “There needs to be some protections in the law, and I think they need to be harsh punishments.”
Under the bill, using AI to generate an obscene image of an adult without their consent would be a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a $50,000 fine. Obscene AI images of minors would come with imprisonment up to 20 years and a $100,000 fine.
Several people told a Senate Judiciary subcommittee Monday they support the intent of the bill, but they were concerned it could be too broad.
“Sixteen-year-old boys are dumb. You have a tool that will very easily create a naked image, and you’re telling a 16-year-old boy whose brain is barely fully formed, certainly not their frontal lobe, that they cannot do that thing,” said Cindy Battles, policy director for The Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, a civil rights group. “I don’t think a 16-year-old child should be charged with a felony for having an image that they created using AI.”
The American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia told senators the bill should be revised to target harmful images while protecting satire, political commentary, artistic expression and parody.
“This is what we ought to be doing with our time because technology is getting beyond our criminal justice system,” said Minority Leader Harold Jones II, D-Augusta.
Legislators said they will continue working on the bill, and it didn’t receive a vote Monday. Hatchett said he plans to present a new version of the bill next week.
ATLANTA — The Republican-controlled Georgia Senate voted along party lines Monday to urge Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to turn over the state’s unredacted voter list — which includes 8 million voters’ personal information — to the Trump administration.
The vote came five days after the FBI seized ballots from the 2020 presidential election in Fulton County, which Democrats called another example of federal interference.
Raffensperger, a Republican running for governor, and Democrats opposed the nonbinding resolution, saying state law protects voters’ Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers and full birth dates from disclosure.
The resolution is a symbolic show of support for the U.S. Department of Justice’s nationwide effort to collect voter lists, saying it wants to ensure accurate registration information.
“If we have only valid voters in our system, then what’s there to hide?” said state Sen. Ed Setzler, R-Acworth. “We should share our voter list with valid government entities to make sure there’s nothing wrong with the data.”
Democrats said the resolution undermines public trust in elections ahead of this year’s midterms, blaming President Donald Trump and his Republican supporters in the Senate.
“Here’s the setup to start interfering with Georgia elections,” said state Sen. Nikki Merritt, D-Grayson. “He can’t accept losing 2020 like he did. He can’t accept the loss. And now we keep relitigating it, and voters are paying attention.”
Prior to the Senate resolution, the Department of Justice sued Georgia for the statewide voter list last month.
Raffensperger’s office previously provided the DOJ with a public version of Georgia’s voter list that redacted voters’ personal information.
Raffensperger is a candidate for governor in the Republican primary in May against Attorney General Chris Carr and Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who is supported by most Republican state senators.
ATLANTA —Students in Georgia schools could soon have more opportunities to study outdoors instead of inside a classroom.
The state Senate gave final approval Wednesday to a bill that calls for a pilot program that incorporates outdoor learning spaces at K-8 schools chosen by the state Department of Education.
The vote was unanimous, and the bill now heads to Gov. Brian Kemp after it previously passed the House.
“I was able to benefit greatly from an outdoor classroom at North Habersham Middle School,” said state Sen. Bo Hatchett, R-Cornelia. “Today’s students should also benefit from that same opportunity.”
State Sen. Sheikh Rahman, D-Lawrenceville, said time away from the confines of school buildings will help students.
“Our kids now, they spend so much time on the computer. They don’t go outside,” Rahman said. “The whole idea is getting children to spend more time outside with nature. It’s good for obesity and mental health. There will be a lot of benefits.”
Under Senate Bill 148, the outdoor education pilot program will last at least three school years, and then state legislators will evaluate its impact.
UNION CITY — FBI agents raided Fulton County’s elections warehouse Wednesday to collect ballots from the 2020 presidential election, an escalation by the Trump administration into unsubstantiated allegations of fraud.
The FBI didn’t release details of its investigation, calling it a “court-authorized law enforcement action.”
A federal search warrant said the FBI is seeking a trove of election records, including all 523,000 ballots cast in Fulton in 2020, absentee ballot envelopes and tabulator tapes.
The seizure of ballots follows years of complaints by Republican President Donald Trump that the 2020 election was stolen after he lost Georgia by fewer than 12,000 ballots to Democrat Joe Biden. Three vote counts showed Biden won Fulton, the heavily Democratic home of Atlanta, with about 73% of the vote.
The FBI executed a search warrant for ballots from the 2020 presidential election at the Fulton County elections warehouse on Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026. (Mark Niesse/Capitol Beat)
Fulton’s ballots from the 2020 election have been kept under seal over the last five years despite repeated efforts by Trump’s allies to review them to look for wrongdoing or miscounts. Georgia law prevents ballots from being unsealed without a state judge’s order, but the FBI’s search warrant came from a federal court.
Democrats criticized the raid as federal overreach in an attempt to validate the president’s unproved suspicions, while Republicans praised the FBI for trying to uncover more about the county’s known elections mismanagement.
“I’m not concerned about finding actual evidence because I think it’s very clear that nothing except some poor administration happened,” said State Election Board member Sara Tindall Ghazal, a Democrat, outside the elections warehouse. “What I’m concerned about is the federal government using and abusing its authority.”
State Election Board member Salleigh Grubbs, a Republican who also came to see the search, said she hopes for a thorough investigation.
“It’s been a long time in coming, I think, and getting a lot of the answers that need to be given,” Grubbs said.
Republicans who believe there was wrongdoing have pointed to inaccuracies in Fulton, including state investigations that found over 3,000 double-scanned ballots and early voting documents that lacked required signatures.
While investigations have repeatedly verified sloppiness and disorganization, they’ve never found intentional attempts to alter the vote count.
“This is extremely alarming. I think Fulton County and Georgia in general are tired of being the target of Donald Trump’s narcissism, that’s all this is about,” said state Sen. Josh McLaurin, D-Sandy Springs, a candidate for lieutenant governor. “He is dispatching federal officials at the highest levels of government to try to vindicate his agenda.”
The Department of Justice, which includes the FBI, didn’t respond to a request for comment.
“This is another step in the FBI doing the president’s bidding to create a criminal case against Georgia,” said Kristin Nabers, Georgia director of All Voting Is Local, a voting rights group. “By carrying out this farce of an investigation, election deniers are trying to placate his delusions. This is a power grab.”
Three large trucks parked outside the elections warehouse, where agents prepared to load ballots and election documents.
Neither Fulton County’s government nor the secretary of state’s office received advance notice of the raid before agents descended on the elections warehouse.
Mark Davis, a Republican and Georgia elections analyst, said on social media that he talked to the DOJ in September.
“I am over here dancing in my kitchen!” Davis said. “We got our wish, and more. And now we see the fruit of five years of work.”
The State Election Board and the Department of Justice both issued subpoenas last year for 2020 election records, and those subpoenas are still being litigated in court.
Trump pressured Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to reverse the results of the election in early 2021, a demand that resulted in criminal charges against Trump in Fulton. That case was dismissed last year.
Days before the raid, the DOJ sued Georgia to seek access to its voter registration list. Raffensperger has refused to turn over an unredacted voter list, which includes voters’ personal information protected by state law including Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers and full birth dates.
ATLANTA — The U.S. Department of Justice has again sued Georgia for the state’s voter list — including voters’ personal information — days after a federal judge dismissed a similar lawsuit filed in the wrong court.
The Trump administration’s demand Tuesday is its latest attempt to force Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to turn over voter registration information as part of a nationwide effort to collect voters’ data.
Raffensperger’s office has said state law requires him to protect voters’ driver’s license numbers, Social Security numbers and birth dates — the same information the DOJ wants for an investigation of voter registration accuracy.
“Georgia conducts as much (voter list) maintenance as it is permitted to do under federal law,” according to a court filing by Raffensperger’s office in the case dismissed last week.“… The DOJ is not entitled to confidential information about every Georgia voter.”
Republicans in the Georgia Senate have sided with the DOJ and against Raffensperger, a fellow Republican who is running for governor against Lt. Gov. Burt Jones and Attorney General Chris Carr.
The Senate could soon vote on a nonbinding resolution that urges Raffensperger to comply with the DOJ.
Raffensperger’s office provided the DOJ with a public version of Georgia’s voter list that redacted voters’ personal information.
A federal judge dismissed the DOJ’s first lawsuit for Georgia’s voter list last week because it was filed in the incorrect judicial circuit.
The DOJ previously sued in Macon instead of in Atlanta, where the secretary of state’s office is based. The new lawsuit was filed in Atlanta.
