Athlete and advocate Tim Tebow warned senators at a hearing Tuesday that online child sexual exploitation is outpacing the federal government’s ability to identify victims, requiring an urgent response. He showed a six-month snapshot in which investigators traced more than 338,000 unique U.S. IP addresses that had downloaded or distributed child sexual abuse material.
“We are losing the battle, and we are losing the war, and boys and girls are suffering for it,” Tebow said.
The Heisman Trophy winner and author testified before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism at a hearing on the growing crisis of online child exploitation and gaps in the federal victim identification system. He argued the growth is not due to a lack of awareness or effort by investigators, but a lack of capacity: Homeland Security Investigations’ Cyber Crimes Center has only seven full-time victim analysts dedicated to identifying children depicted in abusive material, while making that case that more than 200 are urgently needed.
To illustrate the scale, Tebow pointed to a map of online activity that showed the widespread distribution of child sexual abuse material.
“Every red dot that is on there is someone that is downloading, sharing or distributing,” Tebow explained.
Tebow also told lawmakers the danger is not confined to screens.
“55% to 85% of them are also hands-on offenders, and we know that your average offender has thirteen victims in their lifetime,” he said.
Tebow urged senators to pass the Renewed Hope Act of 2026, a bipartisan bill introduced by Reps. Laurel Lee, R-Fla., and Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., that would expand the federal victim identification workforce so law enforcement can more quickly match abusive images to real children and locate them. The act would require the hiring and assignment of at least 200 investigators, computer forensics specialists and criminal analysts to child exploitation units within Homeland Security Investigations.
“The scale of harm right here in America is, to a certain extent, hard to comprehend, but that’s why we’re here,” Tebow said.
Tebow, founder and chairman of the Tim Tebow Foundation, also pointed to the growing backlog of unidentified victims in international databases. He said that ahead of the hearing, his team asked Interpol for an updated count of unidentified material and was told it is now “over 89,000 series” in one database alone.
The Senate hearing, titled “Lost and Exploited: Confronting Child Trafficking and the Failure to Protect America’s Most Vulnerable,” also included testimony from Staca Shehan of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, Yasmin Vafa of Rights4Girls and Julia Einbond of Covenant House, alongside a mother identified only as “Jane Doe.”
Jane Doe testified that more than 25 years after her daughter was victimized, she still receives Justice Department notifications when offenders are found in possession of the images. She said the number of offenders connected to the material has grown into the tens of thousands.
“Our country’s most precious and vulnerable lives have been forgotten,” Tebow said. “We need more resources, plain and simple.”
Outside the hearing room, Tebow has also leaned into courtroom strategy. He and his foundation, partnering with the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, are preparing an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to take up a case involving X, formerly Twitter, tied to allegations the platform failed to remove child sexual abuse material while relying on Section 230 protections.
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