WASHINGTON—Sen. Jim Banks, a far-right Republican representing Indiana, announced Wednesday that he has introduced a federal age verification bill that would require users across the United States to verify their ages and identities to access platforms with at least one-third of content classified as sexually explicit.
This proposal comes weeks after Banks sent a letter to President Donald J. Trump's Justice Department urging obscenity prosecutions to resume. In the immediate development, Sen. Banks introduced the so-called Safety and Age Filtering Enforcement (SAFE) for Kids Act.
"Kids should not be exposed to pornography with just a few clicks," Banks said in a press statement. "The SAFE for Kids Act helps parents protect their children and bring commonsense safeguards nationwide." Structured similarly to model age verification bills active in half of the U.S. states, the act would require "reasonable" age verification and digital identification to access any web platform containing adult content, essentially.
A copy of the bill reviewed by AVN shows that, if passed and signed into law, the federal government would classify a "covered commercial entity" as any "commercial entity that knowingly and intentionally publishes or distributes on an internet website material, of which greater than 1/3 is sexual material harmful to minors."
The bill would also subject "any officer, director, or employee ... engaged in the performance of the duties of the individual as an officer, director, or employee" to prosecution.
The term "sexual material harmful to minors," per the legislation, has three components. Those are defined as "(A) the average individual applying contemporary community standards would find, taking the material as a whole and with respect to minors, is designed to appeal or to pander to the prurient interest; (B) in a manner patently offensive with respect to minors, exploits, is devoted to, or principally consists of descriptions of, actual simulated, or antimated displays or depictions of sexual act or sexual contact as defined under ... United States Code; [and] (C) taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors."
Barring the broad definition, the compliance and enforcement of the bill would be vested in the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the office of the Attorney General, head of the Justice Department. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Trump's defense attorney during the Stormy Daniels hush money trial in New York, would be responsible for criminal prosecution.
According to the bill language, criminal penalties would be levied on the owners and operators of platforms accused of breaking the age verification components of the law.
"The Attorney General may initiate a criminal investigation of a covered commercial entity that the Attorney General has reason to believe, and may initiate a prosecution of a covered commercial entity that the Attorney General determines is knowingly violating, or has knowingly violated, this act," the bill's language notes.
If signed into law and enforced by the Justice Department, those who violate the act could be imprisoned for up to 5 years, and struck with a federal-level felony. Additionally, an individual found guilty could be fined $750,000, or $1.5 million for an organization.
A criminal penalty could also be issued against a commercial entity that had profits during any year of more than $1 million that were attributable to the alleged violation, or against an entity or individual "engaged in efforts to deceive" or "obstruct" the Justice Department or the FTC.
Under the bill, the FTC is also granted expansive civil enforcement authority. This is unsurprising given that the FTC under Trump has gone on record supporting age verification at the federal level.
The bill also establishes a federal private right of action. Expansive coverage of the bill is the brainchild of several right-wing and far-right activists and think tank personalities directly responsible for the anti-pornography proposals supported by Project 2025.
As AVN reported, Project 2025 is a conservative effort that was presented as a "plug-and-play" platform for President Trump's return to the White House. Kevin Roberts, the president of the right-wing Heritage Foundation, first proposed a ban on pornography and the revocation of the field's First Amendment protections in the Project 2025 blueprint, as AVN additionally reported.
Project 2025 architect Russ Vought, the current director of Trump's Office of Management and Budget, was caught on hidden camera by British journalists saying that age verification laws would serve as the "back door" to delivering on Roberts' mentioned porn ban.
Roberts endorsed the Banks bill in the same press release. He said, "Congress must act now to protect our children from adult content on the internet. No more excuses.
"While Washington drags its feet, kids across the nation are being exposed to vile, pornographic images and ads with no meaningful safeguards to prevent it," Roberts asserted. "Americans are angry that their kids are being indoctrinated into a left-wing ideology intended to infiltrate their hearts and corrupt their moral center."
Other individuals and organizations backing the SAFE for Kids Act include Project 2025 collaborators Heritage Action, the Ethics and Public Policy Center, the Institute for Family Studies, the National Decency Coalition, the Concerned Women for America, and the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.
Adult entertainment industry stakeholders are concerned about the proposals outlined in the SAFE for Kids Act. Alison Boden, executive director of the Free Speech Coalition (FSC), told AVN that she is not surprised at the proposal.
"Apparently, the usual anti-porn suspects convinced Sen. Banks ... to put his name on yet another unserious messaging bill," Boden said. "There are members of Congress who are engaging on this issue in good faith, but Jim Banks is not one of them."
Building on that sentiment, adult industry attorney Corey Silverstein expressed his dismay at the bill. He said, "Protecting minors from accessing adult content is a goal everyone can agree on.
"The real question is whether government-mandated age verification laws actually achieve that goal without creating serious privacy and free speech concerns for adults," he added. "Requiring people to upload identification or sensitive personal information to access legal content creates new risks, including data breaches and chilling lawful expression."
Lawrence Walters, another attorney who specializes in adult entertainment clients, highlighted the substantial concerns with the SAFE for Kids Act.
"Substantial free speech and privacy concerns arise when the government seeks to impose mandatory age verification on websites based on the content of the speech published on those sites," Walters said. "While the U.S. Supreme Court has approved of one such law in Texas, other similar laws could go too far and remain subject to constitutional challenges.
"This bill imposes significant criminal penalties on alleged violators, and the obligations specifically apply to officers, directors,and employees of covered website operators," he continued. "The Supreme Court has not considered whether such a broad criminal prohibition is constitutionally sound."
