SEC & Porn: Porn Surfers Symptom of Bigger Problem in Government

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It has been reported that during the past two years, over two dozen employees at the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) were investigated for viewing pornography while at work. There were also over 8,000 separate instances of attempts to view pornography reported, including attempts to access child and transvestite pornography sites. The employees caught in the investigation included supervisors as well as general staff members. The Washington Times broke the story:

The work computer of one regional supervisor for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission showed more than 1,800 attempts to look up pornography in a 17-day span: "It was kind of distraction per se," he later told investigators.

But he wasn't alone. More than two dozen SEC employees and contractors over roughly the past two years have faced internal investigations after they were caught viewing pornography on their government computers, according to records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and other public documents.

The activities of porn-surfing SEC workers, a small fraction of the overall work force, have been serious enough to warrant a mention in each of the past four semiannual reports sent to Congress by the SEC's office of inspector general.



Although it is disturbing that anyone, particularly government employees, would not be able to at least withhold their desire to view pornography until they were in the privacy in their own home, this situation is unfortunately not all that unusual (aside from the viewing of child pornography, which if true, is a felony). The only unusual thing is that these employees seemed to be very persistent in their desire to view porn while at work, given that some of them went to extremes to find ways around the security software that blocked access to porn sites.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not condoning the actions of any of these employees. Attempting to view porn sites while at work is incredibly stupid, and they deserve to be punished for their actions. Viewing porn on the job is not something that should be tolerated, especially from government employees paid with tax dollars. However, let's not get carried away. Unless there were thousands of employees searching for porn instead of "more than two dozen," this foolish behavior did not have a significant impact on the SEC's ability to perform its task of protecting the interests of investors, and supervising securities exchanges and brokers. The SEC did fail to protect investors; however it was not because a few horny employees were searching for porn at work.

Although it may make for a cute headline, the greater issue here is the lack of supervision and accountability that must exist for such things to happen. This ignorant behavior raises the question of how to keep watch over government actions.

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