Atomic Squirrel, JD, DD 🇺🇦⚖️

The idea is good but the text itself was rushed and not thought through. It violated a lot of standard practices to protect survivors and due process: 1. It also released documents related to allegations found to be false or unsubstantiated, not just verified violations or settlements. So innocent people would get lumped in with violators. 2. To our knowledge, there was zero victim consent or consultation on this text. That is very different than with Epstein, where victims are centered and consulted at every step. Here, victims offered all their statements with the promise of protection and anonymity. The text gave them no way to have a voice in what information of theirs or their accounts they wanted public or keep private. That is important because… 3. Although there was a throwaway line about redacting victim names, I do believe full witness or victim statements would have been released. With the way employment at the House works (offices are small, time periods of staff employment are publicly disclosed, etc) it means that even with names redacted you can definitely track details in witness statements and use that to ID victims without their consent. And there was zero mechanism for victims themselves to assert their privacy. Originally we were supposed to debate the details of the text over two days but for some reason they rushed the vote so we couldn’t iron out any of these details to get this information properly disclosed in a way that guarantees victim safety. If the text was clean I think you’d get a lot more support. As a survivor, I know why the vast majority of women never report at all and a lot of those reasons, even if unintentionally or inadvertently, were included here. For me at least, guaranteeing the safety and agency of victims and survivors would get me to a YES.