While the rest of the country was losing homes and nest eggs, some of the government’s financial watchdogs were actually WATCH DAWGS eyeing porn on the Internet on the taxpayer’s dime instead of keeping an eye on our interests.
The following commentary is from today’s The Atlantic, business section, and is by Daniel Indiviglio:
“The above headline might seem like a joke. It isn't. Senior staffers at the Securities and Exchange Commission were surfing Internet pornography when they should have been policing the financial system. A deeply disturbing SEC memo to Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) exposing this problem was reported Thursday night by ABC News. Here are some highlights via the Associated Press:
— 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.
On one hand, two cases in 2007 means that either it wasn't that widespread of a problem or it hadn't yet been detected. On the other hand, the fact that this behavior seems to have been so prevalent among senior level employees is particularly troubling. They're the ones who should have been closely watching the financial industry and leading the way to help prevent the system from collapsing.
A few things should be concluded from this revelation. First, government computers must need better firewalls to block out this content. Second, this is a pretty grim verdict on the effectiveness of regulators. When on the verge of the most major economic crisis in around 80 years, they were watching porn instead of the financial system.
This certainly isn't the kind of publicity the SEC needs as it begins to prosecute its high-profile case against Goldman Sachs. This memo damages the credibility of the regulator. Though, it does begin to explain why it took the SEC more than three years to bring the complaint against Goldman: its employees had other things on their minds.”
This is one of those rare stories that actually leaves me speechless. No comment or analysis can truly do this one justice, folks, so I’m letting it speak for itself!
— The Curator
This goes way beyond looking at porn on the company computer. These wankers (what else could have been going on for THAT long?) were being PAID to look at porn. Seems like they should be made to reimburse the government for the salary and benefits received during the time they were not working their jobs. I would ask who was watching these jerks, but it sounds like they where they people in charge.
ReplyDeleteI really am amazed at the 14-day suspension for looking at 16,000 porn websites on government computers. At just about any government contractor I know of, more than one incident after a first offense warning and the employee would be out the door.
I, too, used to work for the government. In my agency I would have been fired, lost pension, etc., for such disgusting behavior. Amazing, actually, that they weren't caught even soon. I also agree that the penalty is way too generous. (One was a woman -- can a female be a wanker, too?)
ReplyDeleteNot to take such a serious topic off track and this is a very serious topic, but now that you bring it up …
ReplyDeletea female wanker? Well, from what I hear, I think at least some can, or at least for the use of the term I think you thought I meant! (Now you know I really did not mean that one, ;-) right?) However, there are other definitions that apply like this one from the Urban Dictionary, “Someone who makes as little effort as they can possibly get away with.” That would really apply to both males and females in this case.
OK, back to being serious … the fact that it was both males and a female kind of breaks down some stereotypes doesn’t it?