Please have Eddie Worth with a Safe Surfing foundation. They're doing some phenomenal work. I have a lot of different people on our show that talk about law enforcement issues, and it's really cool to have somebody that is working hand in hand with law enforcement and instead of responding to a tragedy, you're trying to prevent it. I really appreciate you coming on talking about what safe Surfing is doing, and just like I always just want to open up by Tony, like, I really appreciate you being here and like you talk a little bit about where you grew up and how you ended up in safe surfing. Sure, glad to and thanks for having me too. Absolutely. You know, safe surfing has been around since nineteen ninety eight. Okay, so we're still trying to get word out on how to properly educate our children and parents on internet safety. Kind Of going back to my history, I went to natural Bridge High School, graduated from natural Bridge High School. The Rockets, right, Natural Bridge Rockets exactly. Yeah, but that was back in sixty eight when I graduated, So I'm kind of telling them why i'm gray hair now right. Well, So after that, went to Phillips Business College over in Lynchburg. I don't think they're still there, but went there and while I was there, had the opportunity to go to work with the FBI up in d C. So stayed with the FBI for a while. I realized that really I wasn't the city guy, and that's where I was going to have to work. I was working right out of downtown d C on Second and D Street, And you know, I grew up in Glasgow and natural bridget every little culture difference there. Yeah, Like we went from zero stop lights to Washington, d C. So that didn't last long. However. Yeah, I got quite an education though not only on law enforcement and the identification side of what the FBI does, but just general learning knowledge culture, different cultures than what I've grown up in. But decided that, you know, I need to get back back home and was able to. Then I was hired by Eco Lab, which is a fortune five hundred company, and I spent my career there in sales. And from there that's what I met with Sheriff Brown at a conference. The Moose Association is a huge, huge supporter of Sheriff Brown and the Foundation, and I was at a conference and Sheriff Brown had a lady and his daughter and her daughter and your daughter had been abducted by an online predator. And they told their story and it just hit me that, man, I need to do something here to help the just to help this cause. So I started volunteering. And this was back early two thousands, I guess, and I volunteered, traveling across the country when I could get off work and this kind of thing, going out and talking to kids and parents about internet safety. Sheriff Brown was able to get me in front of the folks at ikak here in Bedford County internet crimes against children and they helped me learn what all was going on and how to talk to the kids, and became associated with the National Center for Missing Exploited Children and picked up on their programs and then this went out and started speaking as a volunteer. This went on for I guess fifteen years or so. And realized after after going out and talking to these kids that they weren't really listening to a older person come in and talk to them about the Internet because they knew more than we did, right right, So that's kind of how I got started in the whole thing. And so they grew up that these kids grew up in it. They know how to navigate things. Yeah, one hundred percent. You know back in nineteen ninety eight that i CAC got started in nineteen ninety six and Sheriff Brown, Bedford County Sheriff's Office was one of the first ten IICACK task forces. I think there's the only i CACK task force that operated a BYuT a local jurisdics. They may be, they may be. Uh. There are two IICAQ task forces in Virginia. The state Police as one in northern Northern Virginia and Bedford County has the one here U sixty. I believe there's sixty two of them now across the country. That's really cool. Here's the problem. These guys. They're sitting behind the computers, guys and girls, God bless them there they sit behind computers and talk to these predators to see if they're going to cross the line. And that is so hard on these folks because they see and hear all these stories and it's terrible what's going on. So you talked about the story that you heard that the child that had been abducted, and we thought we talk a lot about what law enforcement goes through. Just to just talk a little bit just on your knowledge of like what these investigators have to go through. You know, it sounds really clean, like, hey, we have this chat and now like them up. But it's not that something. It's not that's something at all. Really the mental part that these investigators go through through a lot of the times, and more likely than not, more more times than not, they can only do this job for a short period of time because it wears on them emotionally so much. Because keep in mind, these investigators they have children at home, right or they may have grandchildren, nieces and nephews, and they can see all these things happening to their families, and they're actually talking to these predators that are are telling them some of the worst things in the world. You can imagine that they're doing in some of the vilest images. Oh, you can imagine. I think Sheriff Brown had discussed an adult having sex with a baby an infant, Yeah, an infant, yes, And I mean and that's not unusual, that's not unusual at all. I think what's kind of interesting is one of the things that we discussed with We did a project with Liberty University and the students that participated in that. They actually got on the dark web, and we're able to find where you could actually order a child, and it's it's a year and up. And I don't think people realize like what the impact of that is not only for the victim, but also from a law enforcement standpoint, these kids never recover. We work, you know, I'm still in law enforcement, and we work these these sexual assaults and it's just a it really is a reoccurring issue. Like if you if you're if you abuse a child, that child is probably gonna end up an abuser. And it just continues on and on and on, which I think is what is really cool about what you are trying to do is you're not trying to interrupt the cycle. You're trying to stop it before whatever occurs. We are we're being proactive, trying to get in front of it. Okay, I'll kind of go back to what I said a few minutes ago when I started off traveling around the country talking to school assemblies, church groups, had Eric Strada going with me. I don't know if your listeners can remember Eric or not, but Chips, yeah from Chips. We'll go back on that. Yeah, Yeah, so did I. But Eric and I traveled for two years talking to school groups and churches. UH. Safe Surfing had funded a movie that was called Finding Faith that Eric's started in UH, and we would go to churches all over the country from Mississippi to California, showing this movie at no charge, not charging the thing, trying to get ahead of these predators. And the movie was about UH, kidnapping and human trafficking and this kind of thing. And it's still out there and you can go online and find. That the name of that finding Finding Faith. Yeah, okay, all right. Faith was the name of the girl that got abducted in and it's it's faith. It's faith based as. Well, right, Okay, So, like, from your standpoint, what to talk about some of the partners that you have, because I think that's what's unique about it is obviously IKAK is a government reaction to a situation. I think it's really cool that a private entity is out there trying to prevent even a government intervention. At this point, you know, if you don't have a victim, you don't you don't have to investigate it. So talk about some of the partners that y'all have with safe Surfing. Well, well, so we work with like I said a few minutes ago, National Center from Missing Exploited Children. They're a nonprofit as well. Okay, they've got wonderful educational programs available. We do so talk about some of these educational programs because I know we have parents and things like that, and I think, I think it's so easy as a parent to say, like, well if I just monitor a little bit, but I don't think that we can't monitor it that well. So ho, so how does that work? How does it work with what you do as far as educating the parents, educate the parents but also the children. Well let me let me kind of go into a story on how our Team Cyberswatt came about and then move on into AI if we could do that. Yeah, so talk about Team Cyberswats. Okay, so we eight nine years ago now realized after I came back in from a trip Sheriff Brown but still a sheriff here, and I met him over in his office and now Safe Surfing is a five O one C three nonprofit. Didn't have a lot of money. What money we did have came from private donors, and we volunteered a lot of our stuff. So for me to try raffle took took some money, right, especially if I'm going back to California and across across the country. So I'd made several trips out and I came back into the Sheriff's office and was kind of debriefing my trip with him and Robin Sunquist, who was the co founder with Sheriff Brown of Safe Surfing, and one of the other ladies in the office, and I was saying, look, I feel like we're spending a lot of money on my travel, even though I'm staying in the back of the airplane, you know. And we're not talking about five storry, No. We're not. We're talking days in super eight whatever. If it was clean. I was there right and then would go out and talk to these kids. And I came in one day, like I said earlier, we take Estrada, we'd taken u Shaquille O'Neill, he was a supporter of us, and I came in and said, look, I don't know what to do. I don't feel like the these kids are picking up what we're putting down out there, and we're not spending the money the best way we can. I just don't think they're listening to us. And one of the ladies in the office, Janet, said, well, I've got two girls and they don't listen to me either, but they listened to each other. Well, the light bulb kind of went off. Well, maybe we need to do a peer to peer program. So we teamed up with the National White Collar Crime Center out of Morgantown, West Virginia, and developed the program that we named Team Cyber SWAT and the SWAT stands for Safety while Accessing Technology. And what we did was put together programs that the older kids in high school could pull from the program we had, whether it be sextortion, cyber bullying, human trafficking, social whatever's going on in their school. We would give them links to go out to where they could actually build their own presentation for them to give to the younger students. And we was very successful in getting that out to schools. So that's a huge resource that you can actually you already have everything in there and. All the kids had to do was go pull it, put their words to the presentation, and make it relevant for them. It did, and they listened. They started listening to kids. Well that was great until COVID hit. Yeah, and once COVID hit, the kids went home from school, the bad guys went home from work. So we had the perfect storm. Now the predators are talking to the kids more and more, right, So can. I stop you sure? Because we're transitioning into the AI. Correct. Okay, So let's talk a little bit more because what you just explained is a very very simple program, but like how effective is it? Well? As just so yeah, so I'm just saying from a cybersquat, like because COVID is over now we have kids that you can use it again because you told me earlier about rock Ridge County doing it, and so talk about the talk about what you've experienced from the cybersquat, like you have all you all invested a tremendous amount of time and effort into this program and money and nobody's like it's not nobody's using it, but like it is like this untapped amazing resource. Well Sheriff Brown's wife, Janet Okay as a professor or she's retired now professor at Liberty University and Liberty it has been a huge supporter of hours and they granted h uh, Janet Or gave her the opportunity, uh to go out and interview kids into schools that we had put it in on a pilot program and we did ten schools. Uh so, y'all actually did like a valuation. We did. Yeah, and we're talking We're not talking about some random person. This is a doctor. No, we talked about doctor. Yes, I was at the doctor psychology. Right. So she got to four of the schools. Okay, I mean we were we even were out in Wyoming, Wyoming, West Virginia, New York, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee. We had had them spread out. Uh. So she got to four schools interviewing the kids there on. Yeah. After that, it had been in place for a while, three months or whatever that was. And every kid it was like each one of them had a script that they shared and they didn't because they were all over the country. Every kid said, hey, we see where this works. We can tell in our school where the side the bullying has slowed down, that we can really measure this by what we see. And so it's working right, right, So we're all excited and we're ready to rock and roll rollless thing out across the country. And that's when then. COVID hit, but you still have that technico we do. Oh yeah, so where Virginia you just said rock Bridge is doing it. How many other jurisdictions are doing into Virginia. Yeah one them? Yeah, So why, Like my question to you is, and maybe you can't answer it because to me it doesn't make sense. I'm saying as a as a full time investigator, a ton of my cases are involving exactly we're talking about children singing and nude photos to one another, things like that, which to me is probably what you're already covering, correct, right, And like you're talking about the ramifications long term all these different things, and we're not talking of out like hey, I want to come in there and preach to you about this. We're saying we are empowering their community to do it themselves. So like the school, the student in that school can get this program, make it their own, and deliver it to the remains to the other people. In the school at no charge. And so can you tell me, like one good reason why you don't have parents like kicking down doors saying Governor Yunkin became governor because people did not listen, you know, in northern Virginia, They're like, hey, we want control over our kids. We wanted to figure out what's best for our kids. Why are we not doing this for the cybersecurity for these kids? There are many different programs out there for them to pick from, and there's only so much time allocated to these kids. So what I have found is that the teachers absolutely do not have time for it. So what we developed was a program for the SROs to do it, working with the sheriff's departments or the police chiefs or whatever, and do it in a club atmosphere. We'll sit four h stuff like that. Do you have Team cyberswat. We've been on TV, We've advertised it throughout Virginia, these three local channels, NBC, ABC, CBS, they've all picked it up. We've put it out and nothing happens. And we'll go into the schools and try to get it into schools and the principles or the superintendents, And generally we'll try to go to the superintendents because it's going to end up on their desk anyway. What goes into schools, they will they'll say, well, we just we don't want to deal with that. When I have time, whether it's unbelievable. Based on your experience. Is it one of those things where it's like, hey, if we have safe surfering cybersquat here, that means we have a problem. So let's pretend like we don't have a problem. We're not going to interrupt their educational experience. To me, as an investigator that has to investigate those kind of crimes, it is unreal to me that we are not we are not being proactive because I feel like what I'm hearing you say is the school system is like, I'm not really sure. What about sheriffs picking this up? Let me tell you. Let me tell you a true story that to happen. So a principal asked me to come into that I knew, okay, So he goes and you knew what I was doing. He said, can you give come in to a presentation? And I'm going, for sure, Sure, what's going on? Oh we got a pretty big problem with sex sexting. Mm hm, We're kids are taking pictures theirself, they're passing around and also bullying. So you do about an hour to our student body and I'm going, sure, not a problem at all. So I was going into the school that particular day and the superintendent, who also knew of schools in this county, came walking by, Hey, Eddie, what do you What are you doing up here? I said, well, I'm getting ready to do a presentation on bullying and cyber problems. He goes, we. Don't have that problem exactly. I'm going we do have the problem. But I don't think there's a parent out there that thinks that this is not a problem. The problem is that the parents don't know how to educate the kids. And I get that because. You've just given them a pathway. Oh yeah, we have. We have, and these parents it's not getting to the parents though. It's not it's not. And we've spent money on advertising on TV, on radio, on the internet. We got Facebook, We've got you've. Got a phenomenal website. You've got a phenomenal product. We do. I don't want to compare it as a cure to cancer, but it is definitely important enough. Yeah, it's important enough for us to interrupt a child victim because what you just described as far as when kids send a picture out, what people don't realize that are not like you, that have experienced this firsthand. They send that picture out everybody that receives that picture is in possession of child pornoco and so that's a felony each time. Maybe that's the thing. Maybe it is like, hey, parents, you can either choose to do this program which is going to keep your child from being involved in a felony, or we can go ahead and go through the law enforcement. Because I feel like it is it is almost unfathomable that we have a resource to prevent what I see on a daily basis, as far as these kids that are sending nude photos, that are doing things things that like if they just weren't, they're kids, they really are. It's no different than us when we were growing up. We finally realized it's probably a good idea for you to wear a helmet when you're ade a four wheeler, when you're ride a bike. It's just a prevention, right, So why why can we not do that for our kids? Now? We can. We are moving into AI Okay to educate the kids as well. But a couple I guess things that we need to really get get out to everybody as hell. We need to have laws passed that will put education, internet safety, education in the forefront out in our schools to actually require these schools to to give this education we give West Virginia. Okay. I worked Sheriff Brown and I worked with Senator Senator Date, and there's a Center Deeds in Virginia. One in West Virginia. We were working. Are they brothers? No? No, not related, okay. And we talked to him about the problems that we're having. And the reason Senator Deeds was involved is Sheriff Brown's wife's from West Virginia and there's some connection Greenbroock County iniskind of thing. Yes, So we went up and talked to him and really explained to him the issues out here and that we really need laws passed making internet safety mandatory education mandatory. And he said okay, And within one year, one year, Senator Deeds got the bill passed Center Bill four sixty six in West Virginia making Internet safety education mandatory in all public schools grades three through twelve, every school, in every school, every public school in West Virginia. Now they wanted us to help them write up a curriculum on how to do that. We sat down Apartment of Education and we help them them right right. To the West Virginia Department of Education. Yes, okay, so they've been working great. We're rolling out our program we can talk about in a few minutes in August. August. I believe it's eighteenth and we're about a well, I think we're a month away, right, Yes, to roll in this program out to every kid, incorporating the cyberswat program and an AI program as well. Up there. Now. We've met with Representative Walker from Lynchburg here and Senator Stanley so it's Smith Mountain Lake, yes, that area, and tried to put together a bill that the House and Senate could pass. They would have some meat to it that would actually mandate the program. They haven't put the program together that has the meet in it. How long have you been trying in Virginia to do. Schriff Brown's probably I've been trying with Sheriff Brown for about four or five years. Schriff Brown's been trying to since nineteen ninety eight. He said, Democrats, Republicans, and they all talk a great game. Yeah, yeah, we really want to do this, do that, and they. Don't do that. No, they don't. What West Virginia, We're thirty years into it. I'll tell you it kills me. I grew up in Virginia, Virginia native live in Virginia that we had to go to West Virginia to get our kids protected on Internet safety first. I don't think I mean, I don't feel like anybody would disagree with your premise of kids have more access than they have ever had. The computers will be into predators. You're a gateway to predators. Realistically, then that is. And you have a program to teach these We send them to drivers driver's ed to drive a car. And obviously, like a car is a big but some are these human beings and these children that are that become victims and in some cases I don't even think they know they're victims. They think they think that what they're doing is normal, like this is normal behavior, this is what happens. And I just cannot believe that you are giving this and nobody wants to take it. Unbelievable, isn't it. But that's a fact. You know, this is like a parent parents now and you can go to any restaurant, take a Friday night and ronic Lunchberg, Bedford, wherever, and just look around at the table of families and there might be a mom and a dad and a brother and a sister. Well all four of them have a phone and they're all on it texting, may even be text in each other, who knows, yes, But I mean we're talking about kids that are five six years old having this device untrained. It's like saying, Okay, you're the keys to the car, go figure out how to drive it. And they can't. Right well, they to navigate, they know how to navigate, but they have no idea how to do it safely. They don't know how to do it safely exactly. And I think that, like, to me, one of the things that is my biggest frustration with law enforcement is we are reactive. We will react, and we are reacting mass. I mean like we're really good at it. I mean we if you have a critical instant, we know people are coming and they're going to help you. But that's after it happens. What about now when we have like something that you know is a problem. The numbers are there, So I know you said you don't know the numbers, but like, if parents are interested in on in numbers like this, are what are the resources they have to see how big a problem this is? Oh, go to the FBI's website. Just look look under Internet Internet Safety there FBI statistics. Because Homeland Security is doing all right, let's talk about Homeland security a little bit. Okay, all right, what what is Homeland Security doing? From what I can tell, nothing other than they're not being proactive and educating the problem. So they so they but they have teams that deal with that. But again, they have teams that react. That's it. That's it. Their their funding is only allowing them to do that. And I'm gonna put it back on the on the Congress, Senate, you know, house representatives. They've got to provide demand power to be able to go out and educate the kids, right, and they don't have the money to do it. So the only money money they've got is to take cases and see if being reactive right right, So that's a huge problem. Like IKAK right now, if you talk to the commander here in Forrest, I'm sure he'll tell you they're backed up like two years worth of cases. They don't have time to go after these guys. That's how far behind. And I hear this across the country. So we've got to get education into these schools. Education that's meaningful, I mean. And your education product works. It does work, it works, been proven. And it's again and forgive my ignorance, but like to me as somebody that deals with it day in and day out, the fact that you have a solution that you can put in place now that will not just start now, but it'll the children today twenty years from now are going to still be able to like, they're not going to be a victim, and if they're not a victim, they're not going to be a predator. If that makes sense. It makes sense. And so like you're breaking the cycle before it ever starts. You hit it to nail right on the head. We've got to break that cycle and education is the way to do it. And with this Team Cybersquat program that we're we're putting in schools as well as our deputy program on the AI end of it, this is this is how we're structuring it for it to be an ongoing program from year to year to year to year. So the juniors and seniors in high school with the Team Cyberswat, they started off, they talk to kids in the lower grades. Those kids want to become part of their club, right, the Cybersquat club. And then when the seniors graduate. Now the juniors are seniors, and sophomores move up. It just keeps going. And you got to have your sheriff's departments, all your share offices, and your police departments on board. And I haven't met one law enforcement agency yet that isn't on board with doing this. I've not had the first one. They go, yep, we want to do this. So what would it you said to have teeth? But my question to you is this is so like, what if in West Virginia. What is the cost to West Virginia to put your program in statewide? Well, right now, the Team Cyberswate program, there is no charge period. Okay, we provide them the log in to go to a website Team Cyberswate website. We'll provide the log in to the SRO and SRO. All we're asking them to do is to kind of keep the kids in, hurt them in the right place, don't don't go off subject this kind of thing. They give them the information for them to build a program. Right so everything that that's our programs are designed as a mentorship. That's exactly what you're doing exactly. They're facilitator. That's all We asked them to do. Where I have seen it gets sideways is where Ansorrow wants to run the program. And that's not the point. It's not point at all. It's all about period Peer. Now in West Virginia, we're rolling out a pilot program with Skill. We've partnered without a Dana Point, California. We've partnered with them about two years ago to create an artificial intelligence educational program based on period Peer, and we finally got that program ready. Spent several million. Dollars that youse save surfings. We know we've spent a great deal of money, not that amount, but we've spent a couple of one hundred thousand. You don't and basically donated that money to get it rolling, to help build this. And they've put a program they named Deputy to where a child can actually have an app on their phone that they can actually talk to an influencer. So if they're having an issue, let's say they've been approached online by someone that wants them to send a picture, Well that that kid can go online and to this Deputy app and go here's what's happening. I'm talking to someone I don't really know them, but they want me to send a picture, and they will send a picture and this kind of thing. What should I do? And immediately this person, if you will, which is AI, will give them the proper direction on what to do. Number One, you don't want to do that, here's some other options. Talk to your parents, law enforcement, trusted adult, whatever. So we've got that put and that's what we're putting in West Virginia in addition to the CYBERSWAT program for a two year test program. Okay, and that's going to be no charge starting off with them as a pilot, but it's going to eventually be a ten dollars per student per year to be able to get on it. And it's going on their chromebooks in school as well to where we're putting a game program, if you will, in front of the kids, and they will be asked a series of questions concerning whether it's cyberbole and human trafficking, sex source or whatever it might be. And they've got three options to choose, and it'll be seven different less seven different questions. They've got several options to choose, and when they get it wrong, then they have to go back u and revisit it. And until they get it right, the answer right, uh, and then the teacher will be able to get a report from US grading the child on. So it's not just a it's not just a educational without something on the back end to realize that this kid actually learned how to. Be saved exactly and that and that's what it's not just. A blank It's just not a blanket thing like, hey, we're going to throw this at We're going to throw this program out there and see if it works. You are actually testing it. Yeah, this is gonna be measurable. Okay, you know, I think it's got to be measurable. And and what our what our I don't want to say, our hope, our expectation is that this program will take off in other states see it and see the value in it and be able to get started. Even if we just start with the program. That's no charge. Let's get it going. So the so like here right now, sheriff's departments locally, because I feel like sheriffs are the ones that are like they have their hand on the pulse in the localities. What can we do and what can parents and the jurisdictions that listen to this, how do they get their locality interested and get the get things rolling for them. Well, they can call us okay. Uh and go to our website at a safe surfing and it's s U R F I N O G on the end, okay dot org our phone number, the whole, the whole thing would be on. I just I just think that this is something that I would like to personally get involved in to like get this pushing down the track because, like from I have a really small voice, but I can be loud and so like from my standpoint as a law enforcement officer, I think it. I think it's a disgrace honestly that we won't, not as a as a as a state, and as a community, won't get out there and go, hey, we have a problem. Our kids have access to a lot of bad stuff, and these people are going to teach our kids how not to access how to safely navigate a really bad situation exactly. And like for me, I just would like to know how we can get that out there, like who can we contact and what can we do to get people? Because you have a good product. I've gone to your website, I've looked at all these things, and y'all you're not. When I decided to do a podcast, one of the things that I did is I found people that actually know what they're doing. I don't have any idea, like I don't know what our dues get up here and talk, but people know what they're supposed to do. These people know how to put this information out there, and so I want to know how we can put You've got you've gone with the best of the best, the stuff that you have online. It's not like somebody made it in their garage. It is like it is cutting edge information. And so like for me, is how do we get that information? First of all, let parents know, like, hey, you have an alternative. You can actually push this information out to your kids today. Put this information out to your kids, keep your kids safe today, not tomorrow. They can go to your website right now and they can learn how to navigate this right. We've got We've got several different tabs that I would recommend using off our website to educate, to be educated yourself. Okay, we've got a book. That that list frequently asked questions. Okay, it's about seven eight ten page booklet. Okay, you know a lot a lot of our issue now with parents not understanding how to educate is it's not just the parents who are that grew up with the computer. A lot of the parents now and you know, they had computers when they were in school, but a lot of the grandparents are having to care for these kids. Yes, sir, and they could be in their sixties, seventies, eighties and they haven't grown up with the computer. They don't know what to do. But they can go online to our website and pull these resources out to help educate them. But we need these parents to go to these school superintendents, to the school principles, to the sheriff's offices and say, look, we know there's a program out there. It works, it's a great program, and to get it in your school. It's free and. It doesn't cost what they y'all have already invested. Y'all have taken the brunt of the investment in developing this information and technology we have. You just need people to do it. Yep, that's it. Well, we'll definitely link all that stuff because, like for me, is someone that has to investigate this stuff, it doesn't make sense. It really doesn't. It's like it's like it's missing. Something is missing. You've clearly identified a problem. I think I don't think anybody's gonna argue at that point that that these kids are are more exposed than they've ever been here. Here's what's unbelievable. We we get rarely get phone calls to come in to Hey, hey, come, can you come to our school? Can you do this? Uh? Come in help educate the kids. Unless something happens in the community. Once a child gets subducted or a sextortion problem arises, that's hit the news. We hear nothing. Once that happens, our phone starts ringing off a hook. Hey can you come over and do a program? You know, it's like a one time, fixed, one time presentation is going to fix it, and that is not going to work. I mean it's almost like it's almost yeah, it's almost like saying like, hey, we're going to educate our kids. We're going to show up on day one and tell them they're starting school, and then at the end of it, we're gonna we're gonna give them their diploma and tell them we enjoyed their time. It doesn't work. You have to invest, and I feel like y'all have made the investment. You developed technology and information that really works. It's just getting people to buy off on it. We have so talk talk a little bit about the legislative side of it, because like, for me, why maybe just talk about the process of You talked about Delegate Walker, You've talked about another center Stanley. Yeah, you've talked about them. But what exactly has what exactly has transpired with them? Well, here's what will happen. And this has happened in several states that I've been to. It's not just Virginia. Okay, but we'll go in and talk to these folks and they will agree with everything we're doing. They'll even put it in a bill to present, right, Uh, just the way West Virginia actually did it. So they already have the they already have. The We give them the whole format and here's what's worked. We help them write the bill that we know will work, and they get all excited and go, yep, we're gonna we're going to present this and they will in session and by the time it comes out of committee, Uh, it has been butchered. So what committee? What committee of Virginia Education? Uh would would be one? Uh, I'm not sure how many different committees, these things go through, but at the end end result is there's no meat. There's there's just no no teeth to it. So let me ask you this, and this is just me thinking out loud, s ro os. Ever since you've all day, there's been a push to put s ros in schools and you know, from a protection standpoint, as a the term why can why is there any reason why we can't get our s ros to start doing this that you can think of? No, not at all? All right, So so tomorrow, if I have a conversation with the sheriff and I say, hey, the Safe Surfer model, you need to look at this. What are the steps for that sheriff to get it implemented in this school year? First thing you would have to do is go to school and say, look, there's a program that i'd like to see implemented on Internet safety. Our people will run it for you. All we ask is that you provide time for us to do it. And what I'm finding out is all the schools have a block time that they can have, whether it's four h ff A, you know, the different different clubs. So you could work Team cyberswat right into a block time okay, and there's your time to do it. And then we would provide the s r O with the entire toolbox and explain how to go through and present it to the kids. You know, the one thing that has really worked is when when we go into the schools, we try to find the most popular kid and they're out there that every school has. You've got someone out there that everybody kind of looks up to, right Sometimes it might be the quarterback on the football team, or the captain or a cheerleader or whoever it may be. But you get that person involved, explain to them exactly what you want to do, and they start talking to their friends and creating this club and even set it up with a president and vice president and this kind of thing to make it a real real deal. And what I've recommended it's work is that they go out and talk to when these Hardy's, McDonald's, some of some of the fast food and uh restaurant chains and say, hey, this is what we're doing. Would you be able to provide us with say twenty breakfast biscuits for to start up our club and we're going to announce it. Hey, we're going to start this club it's one on cyber education, like for you to join. Oh, by the way, we're having free uh McDonald's biscuits or whatever, you know, whatever it may be. Well, once they hear there's food kind of like copped right. Yeah. No, once they hear it's food and they come like the donut, I'm gonna lie. So once they here it's food, at least they'll come in and start listening to the program. And we've got school in North Carolina in Ardale County right now down near Lake Norman. They have over one hundred uh kids in the Cypressquat Teams cyberswat club and it's been a consistent one hundred kids for the last four years. So when they create this club, and this is just clarification of my brain, when they create this club, does what they create then is disseminated throughout the entire school system. Yeah, that's the idea. Yeah, they will put their spin on whatever they can pick. What's happening at their school. What's going on at Jefferson Forest High School might be something different. It might be cyber bullying at Jefferson Forest. Well over at Stanton River, it could be something totally different, totally different. But we've given these options lesson plans if you will, for the kid to go to or the kids to go to and pull that information to put their own spin on it, to go out and talk to assemblies. They can even go down into the elementary schools and talk to these kids. Everything is age appropriate. So let me ask you this, and this might be a stab that might come back and work poorly for me, But let me ask you a question. If I were to get with the school system and the school system says, yes, we want to do this, when could we roll out the entire curriculum? If we started the club in August, when is that? When does that program roll out to the rest of the school. Well, that would depend on the kids. But I'm saying, like, what is a realistic timetable by if. We would start setting it up like now, right, we get the permission from the superintendent, schools all the way down to sheriff, the whole deal. We would send them the log in to the website, to the toolbox. We've got an onboarding training right on that on that video, and that they could start it immediately. It would be realistic for the first meeting to be in September October or something like that. And so let me ask you, so, like my thought processes this is, is there a way if we create this club that these students are given some type of And I guess that's up to the individual school system. But if an individual school system says if you do this project, this is considered a positive and you get school credit for it, is that possible. I'm just I'm just curious. I'm just trying to think of like the motivations because one of the things that I learned with the gen zers that we have, like these college kids that we're dealing with, they have a miraculous ability to navigate and put things out there and if you give them the like the guardrails, they'll roll with it. And so like for me my thought processes, this is like go to a school system and say, hey, look, we're going to get this club started. Your entire population in your school is going to get internet safety training, peer to peer training. By the end of this fiscal school year, we do active shooter training. You know, and that's almost said a bad word, but that is reactive. That's reactive. It has already happened. How many victims, how many. That's what I'd like to do is I'd like to put out how many victims do you have in that community in that timeframe. It's not like, hey, let's see if we can take our time and get this start. Not it's happening every day. And so why are especially after COVID, these kids were left alone in the house. The schools gave them a computer to go out there and connect, but we who are they connecting to storm? Yes, And so like with that in mind, like I don't feel like there is a sense of urgency in our school systems to say we have got to get out there and get this information out there now. And here's here's an entity that has invested a lot of time and effort and have done it in a really wise way. Let's push this information out there like this is this is a critical type of and it is it is critical because these kids, like every single day that one of these kids sends a picture out there, they're a victim. The kids that they send it to are victims. They might not realize it until they're twenty twenty five years old and they're like, oh my gosh, like that that picture's still out there. Oh well, when they're applying for jobs. Yeah, a majority or a lot of all your larger companies now are are checking their their social media accounts for sure. So if they can put this program together the kids that are driving it, they can certainly use that on their resume, not only for. Like, hey, I agree, I created this space for kids. One hundred percent of the kids in this particular county exactly have been educated on what needs to happen. That's right, And tell me that won't look good on your college So let me. Ask you this. Let's say the school says like, no, we're not want to do this because they have what if this club met somewhere else, got the curriculum together and then presented it to the school board January first. Couldn't easily do that, sure, and then we. Had to let them, let them go and say we don't want our kids. These kids have worked really hard on this project. This information is ready to flow out there. Go ahead and tell them we're not going to let We're not going to allow our students to have access to this and be beautiful. It certainly would, and we will we will certainly support support them from our office. One hundred percent, giving them anything we can to help them. But that's not unreasonable, right, It's not unreasonable if we found if we identify kids in a particular jurisdiction like that, are like, hey, I don't want this to happen like this happened to me. I don't want it to happen. We need to we need to educate our kids. So it's grade three through twelve. And we can even go to kindergarten with by using the nets Mars program that we incorporate into Team Cyber Swat. They have a program from K through six using animated characters if you will, to help educate the kids, you know, a clique and Mousey and different little animate that even going down to because. That that's already done. That's already available, correct, that is available. Everything we've got is available and ready to. But I'm saying on the SWAT, the Team SWAT requires an investment of kids time to deliver it to the grades below them. That other one, the K through six is something that is available right now. You use you can roll out the program and these kids have access to it right. Well, everything is available right now, and the older kids can go down into the k kindergarten through all the way up to through twelfth grade, right. And all this is all this has like been vetted with psychologists and everything else as being age appropriate and everything. Tures. I don't like, Like I said, I I don't understand it. I'd love for this program to go out in nationwide. Your program to go out in nationwide and maybe you know, get some folks thinking we've got to do something. I just intacted. I think all I think all we need is we need some parents in some of these jurisdictions that have been impacted by this to step up to the plate and say, my kid has suffered from this, but this is important enough for me that there's younger siblings and other people are going to be in the same situation this kid was absolutely so yeah, It's it's baffling to me that I understand like divisiveness and everything else, but like I don't understand, like when you clearly have a problem, why it doesn't make sense to me. Parents are not realizing how how big of a problem this is until something happens to them, are the loved one or something hits news. Because this will never happen in my town. That's the thinking. But the crazy thing about it is law enforcement will tell you it already is already is happening. This is not you talk about the felonies. My goodness. Number one, if you're going to take a photo, a new photo of yourself, when you do that, you've just produced child pornography, felony number one. Then when you send it to somebody, now you've distributed it, that's felony number two. When they send it to someone else, that person gets hooked with a felony for distribution, possession and distribution. So you know, these kids have to realize, and the only way they're going to realize is somebody tells them right that, But nobody's telling me. Nobody's telling them after they make the mistake. I've been in schools, honestly, in high school assemblies where I would ask the kids, how many of you know what a felony is right your hand? And I would get maybe ten to twenty percent right, And particularly in the rural schools, I would say, well, how many of you all like to hunt? And oh, my goodness, the girls and the boys both, you know, the hands go up, and I said, well, do you realize if you're convicted of felony that you're right to firearms or will be taken away. Oh no, And do you realize that sending a nude photo is a felony and can be more than one felony? And that gets their attention that okay, now, now I don't want you to take my guns away, right right? Do you know you're not gonna be able to vote, you know? So it's all about awareness. It's all about awareness, and we've got that tool for the kids in the schools. Well, for me, I appreciate you coming in and giving us your time because, like for me, I just feel like you have a solution. And it doesn't look like anybody what I think people are seeing it, but the sense of urgency isn't there. Well, West Virginia is certainly seeing it, and boy, I would rather be sitting here saying, man, Virginia is leading the nation in this, but unfortunately West Virginia is taking a lead on it, and Pennsylvania they're putting it in, putting it in as well. They really wanted to be the first, but we'd already promised West Virginia. So I mean we're getting this message out. Uh, it's just slow. It's a slow process. We've been We've been trying to get it out for years. Yeah, I mean like thirty years. Unbelievable. Well, thank you for having. Me, absolutely helpful. No, it definitely has. I feel like as a parent and as somebody that's in law enforcement, to think that this resource has been there and we haven't been able to use it, it's just it is baffling and it The bottom line, and I'd say this to anybody who listens to this program, is like, if you think your kid is not access and some bad stuff, you're living in a different realm of reality because because your kids, your kids are accessing stuff they should never see. And if you're taking it in the phone away from the kid at home, or not letting them see be on a computer at home, they're going to go to their friend's house, right, So they're gonna they're gonna have access to it. I will close. I guess with this. One of the FBI statistics is that if your kid is online gaming, it's a chance they're going to be approached by an online predator. So the key to that is they need to know when they're being approached and then what to do about it. Yeah, what it looks like exactly, so it's familiar to them exactly, and then what to do about it. And we've got we've got to get out to these kids. Well, I appreciate the time
