In the United States, there is no existing federal law that protects the victims of revenge porn — also known as nonconsensual pornography. In fact, fewer than half of states actually have laws on the books that acknowledge it as a crime and only seven have some sort of law in place that let victims sue the person who posted their image.

Seeing this as a huge problem, Rep. Jackie Speier of California will soon introduce The Intimate Privacy Protection Act, which would make sharing, uploading revenge porn and running revenge porn sites a federal crime.

"Today it’s possible to ruin someone’s life with the click of a button, by publishing another person’s private images without their consent," Speier told the Daily Dot. "Our laws haven’t yet caught up with this crime."

Similar laws have been challenged by free speech advocates in the past, including the ACLU, because the language they used was seen as too broad — like, they could potentially apply it to booksellers or some other non-offensive group who sells naked photos. But, according to Gizmodo, Speier's bill is trying to be more specific about what exactly the crime is in revenge porn: The lack of consent.

Speier's new bill comes after several major changes in how internet institutions view revenge porn. While in the past it was incredibly difficult to take the pictures down, websites are making changes to their policies to protect victims of revenge porn.

Google announced on Friday (June 19) that they will "honor requests" to remove nude or sexually explicit pictures posted without an individual's consent, calling the practice "intensely personal and emotionally damaging." Both Facebook and Twitter made similar changes to their policies earlier this year.

But, Speier thinks that this kind of decision shouldn't be at a company's discretion: It belongs in a criminal court.

"If you’re a celebrity, you can pay a high-priced lawyer to demand that websites take your picture down, but for an average person, the current system offers almost no recourse," Speier told the Daily Dot. "We already punish the unauthorized disclosure of private information like medical records and financial identifiers. Why should personal images of one’s naked body, given in confidence, be any different?"