RAW STORY IS:
CARBON BALANCED; ALL CARBON EMISSIONS ARE OFFSET!

SEC staffers watched porn as economy crashed

By The Associated Press
Friday, April 23rd, 2010 -- 2:08 am

SEC staffers watched porn as economy crashed

Senior staffers at the Securities and Exchange Commission spent hours surfing pornographic websites on government-issued computers while they were being paid to police the financial system, an agency watchdog says.

The SEC's inspector general conducted 33 probes of employees looking at explicit images in the past five years, according to a memo obtained by The Associated Press.

The memo says 31 of those probes occurred in the 2 1/2 years since the financial system teetered and nearly crashed.

The staffers' behavior violated government-wide ethics rules, it says.

Story continues below...

It was written by SEC Inspector General David Kotz in response to a request from Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa.

The memo was first reported Thursday evening by ABC News. It summarizes past inspector general probes and reports some shocking findings:

_ A senior attorney at the SEC's Washington headquarters spent up to eight hours a day looking at and downloading pornography. When he ran out of hard drive space, he burned the files to CDs or DVDs, which he kept in boxes around his office. He agreed to resign, an earlier watchdog report said.

_ An accountant was blocked more than 16,000 times in a month from visiting websites classified as "Sex" or "Pornography." Yet he still managed to amass a collection of "very graphic" material on his hard drive by using Google images to bypass the SEC's internal filter, according to an earlier report from the inspector general. The accountant refused to testify in his defense, and received a 14-day suspension.

_ Seventeen of the employees were "at a senior level," earning salaries of up to $222,418.

_ The number of cases jumped from two in 2007 to 16 in 2008. The cracks in the financial system emerged in mid-2007 and spread into full-blown panic by the fall of 2008.

California Rep. Darrell Issa, the top Republican on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said it was "disturbing that high-ranking officials within the SEC were spending more time looking at porn than taking action to help stave off the events that put our nation's economy on the brink of collapse."

He said in a statement that SEC officials "were preoccupied with other distractions" when they should have been overseeing the growing problems in the financial system.

An SEC spokesman declined to comment Thursday night.

About 16 percent of men with Internet access at work admit to looking at online porn while at the office, according to a 2006 survey by Websense Inc.

Former SEC spokesman Michael Robinson said he shares the public's outrage about SEC staffers who enjoyed porn on the taxpayer dime when they were supposed to be keeping the markets safe.

"That kind of behavior is just intolerable and atrocious," said Robinson, now with Levick Strategic Communications. He said he expects SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro and her team are "very focused on" the issue.

Schapiro has had other worries in recent days. She has been parrying Republican attacks after announcing civil fraud charges Friday against Wall Street powerhouse Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

Agency officials had hoped the charges would mark a new era of tougher oversight of Wall Street. They followed high-profile embarrassments including the failure to catch Ponzi kings Bernard Madoff and R. Allen Stanford.

But soon after Goldman charges were filed, Republicans began questioning the timing of the announcement. The news came as the Senate prepared to take up a sweeping overhaul of the rules governing banks and other financial companies.

Republican lawmakers also accused the SEC of being influenced by politics. The SEC's commissioners approved the Goldman charges on a rare 3-2 vote. The two who objected were Republicans.

Schapiro is a registered independent who has been appointed by presidents of both parties.

___

Associated Press writer Christine Simmons contributed to this report.

Source: AP News

View Comments to “SEC staffers watched porn as economy crashed”

  1. 1uberVU - social comments

    Social comments and analytics for this post…

    This post was mentioned on Twitter by USRealityCheck: SEC staffers watched porn as economy crashed: Powered by MochilaSenior staffers at the Securities and Excha… http://bit.ly/da23Ld raw #US…


  2. 2smithmaria61

    The SEC were spending more time looking at porn than taking action to help stave off the events that put our nation's economy on the brink of collapse.
    how to play farmville


  3. 3PrissyPatriot

    Awwe, they were just depressed…Dubya wouldn't let them do anything about it anyway. Poor pervs.


  4. 4toonces

    “The staffers' behavior violated government-wide ethics rules, it says.”

    You mean actually doing the job you're paid to do?


  5. 5tj

    Its the same thing Whaite American Males are doing while civilization crashes.


  6. 6Digger2000

    Surely criminal prosecutions are in order for theft of public property


  7. 7Salem_guy

    Wouldn't want to shake their hands


  8. 8Original Lefty

    The headline of this story “SEC staffers watched porn as economy crashed” is disingenuous to the point of nausea. Yes they putzed and surfed porno sites but they also went home and seeped, defecated, had dinner and sex perhaps, just like every other person. This well could say “SEC staffers took dumps as economy crashed”. The story serves the magicians trick don't watch this hand watch the other. Whilst they may have watched porn, or picked their noses it was the actions of others that caused the problems including Senators who will blow smoke out their collective butts about how SEC should have connected the dots, or nipples as the case may be.


  9. 9Original Lefty

    Your not serious are you? Very hard to prove. They could claim they were not at the desk and someone with serious issue used their machine to keep their own from getting sprayed with biological fluids


  10. 10OldAtlantic

    Writing a memo without really understanding the problem and someone reading it and not understanding it so that nothing is done is worse. Or being afraid to say the solution, stop 3rd world immigration that leads to subprime mortgages. Since you can't say the real answer, you can't solve the real problem. So you are going to pretend one way or the other.


  11. 11margaretpoa

    This is so typical of the cronies Bush installed throughout government. From FEMA to the DOJ, to the SEC to PBS and beyond, Bush rewarded his friends and contributors with jobs for themselves and their relatives regardless of whether they were either qualified or motivated to do those jobs, while the professionals who actually ran day to day operations fled in droves. One of my biggest complaints about the Obama administration is that they haven't aggressively weeded out these idiots from government.


  12. 12dennycrane

    Hmmm, those dates go back to the guy that said, “Good job, Horny.” Or they “diddled” while Rome burned,


  13. 13OldAtlantic

    Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell were two of the worst do nothings. Rice ignored warnings before 9/11.


  14. 14jeffery1949

    In terms of the “economy tanking” this is a non-story. On the other hand, anybody who has ever worked for the Federal Government knows the rules, and are required to take annual ethics training. Obviously in these cases the boys flunked miserably. They should all have their pay docked proportionate to the hours they spent watching porn instead of doing their jobs.


  15. 15javaman8263

    Try constructing a better sentance with correct spelling and then, perhaps, we can understand what you are trying to say.


  16. 16rat618

    Let's see a report on what Congress does with its government computers.


  17. 17Gorgeous George Orwell

    “But soon after Goldman charges were filed, Republicans began questioning the timing of the (Goldman) announcement.”

    What we've got here is our Shadow Government pulling an “Elliot Spitzer sting” on the SEC, who had been staffed intentionally with saboteurs by the Bush Administration…


  18. 18jojotommy

    ROTFL, no surprise there. Another typical example of our tax dollars at work.

    Lou
    http://www.fbi-logging.tk


  19. 19bunky

    So now it's the SEC's fault that Wall Street gambles with our money? Because some guys watched porn while the crash was happening? This is the lamest of the republican tricks of all. Grassley asked for the “investigation” so there would be news. The SEC already knew what had happened but the GOP needed it packaged for a press release. They're helping Wall St deflect the story away from financial reform.


  20. 20Adam503

    I disagree with this statement, OL. There no mention of any attempts to investigate anything by SEC staffers. A person has bodily functions they have to attend to whether they are doing their job or not doing their job. Some guy has to take a crap after getting out of a courtroom getting some indictments against some crooks gets no headline.

    These people were surfing porn sites INSTEAD of doing the jobs they were getting paid to do, investigate financial transactions.


  21. 21Adam503

    They're another group of people who did not do the jobs they were paid to do.

    I'm willing to bet a few dollars it was Bush political appointees that did it, too.


  22. 22Corporate Indu$trial Complex

    .
    GOLDMAN SACHS HIRED TO SHIELD SEC COMPUTERS FROM NORTH KOREAN CYBER ATTACKS
    .


  23. 23Original Lefty

    Yes they were surfing porn instead of their job but that was only one of many things that they did or didn't do. My issue is with the headline, its salacious appeal and the fact it takes away from the bottom up/ top down failure of the system. To suggest that ah ha we have found the reason for the SEC failure to investigate! Tittys!! Just seems like b.s., the porn is a symptom not the disease. The disease is incompetence. Please respond if you get a chance, I appreciate your feedback. OL


  24. 24The Volunteer

    This is a blatant attack by Goldman Sachs/Wall St. to discredit the SEC to try and ward off and discredit the SEC's case against Goldman Sachs.


  25. 25Egret

    Sounds as if the SEC is being spitzered.


  26. 26Tyroanee

    Gives new meaning to our Tax dollars hard at work…


  27. 27margaretpoa

    Rice was busy still fighting the Cold War and Powell was Rummy's lapdog. Lapdogs were also a staple of the Bush (mis)administration.


  28. 28margaretpoa

    So an extra “a” and a missing apostrophe leaves you groping in the dark for meaning? I don't think that tj is the one with the problem here. Just sayin'…..


  29. 29icenine

    Debbie Does Lehman Brothers.


  30. 30jammer5

    The tone of the posts here sends a rather blatant message as to the state of politics in this country. It would have been better to say the SEC wasted both time and money by fiddling while main street burned. The fact many at the SEC were NOT doing their job seems to be lost in the shuffle. If they can waste time, then there are either too many working for the SEC, or the SEC needs some serious house cleaning.


  31. 31OldAtlantic

    The only war Rice was fighting was with white people. She was fighting Richard Clarke all of 2001 up to the time of the attack. Clarke wanted one meeting on terrorism and bin Laden and Rice refused even one meeting. She didn't care about the white government or white people. If it wasn't about slavery and Jim Crow and hating white people she was indifferent.


  32. 32OldAtlantic

    The management of the SEC had turned off. People who went to the SEC encountered this attitude and were turned off. The SEC's big case in the 1990's was a teenager who blogged about companies. They went for the easy kill, a kid.


  33. 33margaretpoa

    Jeebus. You're a racist little man aren't you?


  34. 34Bruce

    what's the difference?


  35. 35Paul

    TJ is a little stuck on skin color…I think many here call that racism..although prejudice might be a better term.


  36. 36Paul

    Ummm…Bush? So Bush hired staffers at the SEC now? Jeez-us You really need to pop your head out of that shell and look around blue shirt. Every administration has appointed scum to the regulatory agencies…scum recruited from the executive ranks and boardrooms of the very corporations that they are supposed to regulate. Neither the Reds nor the blues are any more or less complicit. Satisfy your doubt by researching the appointments made by the present administration. Wake up.


  37. 37toonces

    That's was one hell of a “money shot”.


  38. 38Paul

    lol…exactly…however there, you may find that the representatives themselves have been a bit more engaged on the homosexual and pedophilic sights than there lowly counterparts…


  39. 39Paul

    That assumption would only hold a few drops of water if one can prove that their jobs at the SEC began during the Bush Administration. Methinks instead that their start dates would reach back into the Clinton years as well as the Bush years. Blue/Red…no difference.


  40. 40Paul

    Interesting hypothesis…and probably close to the truth.


  41. 41GameofLife

    Why would President Obama keep a chimpy hold over like Schapiro? Now she wants to get tough (which is a good thing) now when the shyte already hit the fan. It's obvious she didn't control her ship and should be fired.

    Any IT dept would have caught the misuse of computer activity and should have did more than put up thousands of blocks.

    They should be fired. This in no way gets chimpy off the cutting block for the economy meltdown.

    Also repugs should remember it's not political if crooks are involved.


  42. 42Original Lefty

    I don't remember this in ethics, but in the annual sensitivity training and definitely in the computer security update.


  43. 43Hoosierbrad

    I guess this is the kind of thing that happens when you put Republicans in charge of an agency that they feel should not exist.


  44. 44Hoosierbrad

    This is what happens when you put Republicans in charge of any agency that they believe should not exist.


  45. 45Emily Shumer

    Should these “employees” all be terminated? Vote

    http://www.youpolls.com/default.asp

    .


  46. 46jeffery1949

    You had annual sensitivity training? We only had IT security, ethics, and records management.


  47. 47Gorgeous George Orwell

    So you think a Clinton appointee would have survived the Neocons' purge if there was a whiff of scandal about them? Have you forgotten that keyboards missing the letter “w” were front page news when Bush took (literally) office in 2000?


  48. 48The Truth

    Who's to blame for the crisis? Bush? Obama? Treasury? The Fed? NOPE!

    It's CONGRESS and the CLINTON TREASURY DEPARTMENT and ALAN GREENSPAN.


  49. 49Original Lefty

    Our large field offices were rife with EEO complaints, from sex to race so we had so many Admin Law Judge orders for sensitivity training its was essentially annual.


  50. 50fatngassy

    It wasn't so much the porn, it was the looking the other way while we were ripped off blind. Bill Clinton set the new standard when it comes to sexual perversion in the office.
    The SEC needs a really, really good douching.


  51. 51vkobaya

    Ah, hate to tell you but you guys lost the Civil War in 1865 when Lee surrendered to Grant.You are about 145 years out of date.


  52. 52vkobaya

    From what I've seen, watching porn during working hours is a very wide, wide, wide spread problem. What I find puzzling is why such sites aren't blocked on business and government computers. Only need programs like those used to block children's computers. Doesn't need to be especially fool proof but I'd guess 90% of those people wouldn't have the skills to bypass the blocks. Same for blocking telephone porn which was a problem 25 years ago. Extremely wide problem then, but of course, internet offers visual in addition to audio.


  53. 53Terrible

    “These people were surfing porn sites INSTEAD of doing the jobs they were getting paid to do, investigate financial transactions”

    Exactly! And unfortunately for us working people it wasn't just the SEC during the Bush administration that was guilty of not doing their jobs. It was damn near all government agencies under Bush appointees. Thank the American voters we are finally getting some competent people back in charge of some of those agencies. But there's a long long way to go to getting our government agencies functioning properly again after 8 years of control by right wing ideologies.


  54. 54Terrible

    I seem to recall that Spitzer DID his job. And that that was why he had to take a fall. And since this happened 2 years ago under the Bush administration I think you most have meant “was” not “is”. Better might be “Sounds as if the SEC was being Vitterized.”


  55. 55Terrible

    BINGO!


  56. 56Terrible

    But this happened during the Bush administration so you know they weren't bothering to be any too stringent on things like ethics training.


  57. 57Terrible

    You need to pop YOUR head out of it's shell and read the article!! THIS HAPPEN UNDER BUSH. These WERE Bush appointee hires. What part of that do you NOT understand???


  58. 58Terrible

    You are right about one thing Oldracist. Bush appointees were incompetent and refused to hear the truth about anything.


  59. 59Terrible

    You might want to take a closer look at the time-line of it all. And don't forget who we all can thank for putting Alan Greenspan into power – that's right, Ronald Reagan and George Bush.


  60. 60Terrible

    Exactly! And unfortunately for us working people it wasn't just the SEC that they did this too. It will be some time before we can get OUR government agencies functioning properly after 8 years of incompetence.


  61. 61Links 26/4/2010: Scientific Linux Reviewed; More Linux Tablets | Techrights

    [...] SEC staffers watched porn as economy crashed [...]


  62. 62RustyShackleford

    If this story is true, I really wonder how the culture at the SEC could have deteriorated to the point that employees would think they can get away with this.

    Of course, they may have just been stressed…


  63. 63micro sd card

    The fact that many of the SEC did not work seems lost in the confusion. If they can not waste time, then there is too much work for the SEC or the SEC needs a serious housecleaning.


  64. 64Report:Some Pentagon employees found with child porn still working | Truth Is Scary

    [...] this year, it emerged that investigators were probing allegations of porn-surfing at the US Securities and Exchange Commission, which is responsible for enforcing securities laws. [...]


  65. 65SEC staffers watched porn as economy crashed | Raw Story | MY humb

    [...] original here: SEC staffers watched porn as economy crashed | Raw Story This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged committee-on-oversight, government, help-stave, [...]


Leave a Reply

blog comments powered by Disqus