Tebow referred to a March 2023 meeting that his foundation, in partnership with others, convened in Lyon, France. A press release states that the meeting featured “law enforcement and the world’s leading victim identification agents” and that the purpose was “to determine the exact number of children whose images reside in the Interpol ICSE database, and to operationalize a plan to safeguard them.” Among the groups present at that meeting were Homeland Security, Interpol, Europol, and Google.
“That’s where Operation Renewed Hope was born,” Tebow said. In August 2023, the Tim Tebow Foundation announced that Operation Renewed Hope had resulted in the identification of over 300 victims of child exploitation and the rescue of several victims:
“This three-week surge began July 17 and was the first US-based, multi-national collaboration led by [Homeland Security Investigations] and Interpol, working together with the International Center for Missing and Exploited Children in partnership with the Tim Tebow Foundation.”
Tebow told the committee that at the meeting attendees determined the number of the children in Interpol’s database to be 50,000. The 300+ children they were able to help are a “tiny dent in what we’re called to get to,” he said.
Tebow said the point of the morning’s hearing is to ask the committee to say yes to the bill “we’re going to present.” He continued, “And this bill really has one goal: to build a rescue team. Because there’s so many frontline warriors and heroes, but there’s just not enough.” This rescue team needs “the funding, the support, the training, the technology so that they can get to these 50,000.”
He pointed out that sports teams have incredible resources to get a better chance at winning games that “ultimately…[don’t] matter.”
“Why would we not give as much, if not more, resources to the front line heroes that are going after the most vulnerable boys and girls on the planet?” Tebow asked, stating that over half of the 300+ children identified were in the United States.
After opening statements, Congress members posed questions to the panelists. The topics of discussion included the role of AI in creating CSAM as well as in helping to rescue children; various bills, especially the REPORT Act; and the funds needed to train and provide equipment to the experts who can identify children in CSAM.
Cole said that in 2023, the federal government’s budget to combat drug use was $42.5 billion, whereas the money it spent to fight child exploitation was under $200 million. Not only is that a drastic difference, said Cole, but he believes the two areas are correlated.
Cooper stressed that CSAM knows no jurisdiction and emphasized the importance of cooperating with Interpol, which has an enormous resource in its database. HSI working with Interpol is essential because the partnership enables Homeland Security operators to act on whatever they find wherever they find it. Cooper also described the need to rectify a loophole in the The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) that allows some victims to be returned to their abusers.
