Two-dozen past and present Securities and Exchange Commission employees are probably breathing easier. The reason? A federal judge ruled against making their names public after they got caught watching pornography and other sexual images on the job. In a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed this May, Denver attorney Kevin Evans had argued that government workers who “knowingly and intentionally” used taxpayer-financed property to engage in misconduct had no right to privacy. In a ruling last week, U.S. District Judge Christine Arguello disagreed. Not only were their privacy rights intact, Arguello wrote in an interesting line of judicial reasoning, but…
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The Hill reports House Republicans yesterday tried to attach language to a jobs bill that would have fired feds caught watching or distributing pornography on their work computers. But when dozens of Democrats started voting for the Republicans’ “motion to recommit” — a parliamentary procedure that gives the minority one last chance to amend legislation — and the provision passed, Democratic leaders pulled the bill. Rep. Bart Gordon, D-Tenn., who wrote the bill, was outraged at the Republican’s move: For anyone that is concerned about federal employees watching pornography, they just saw a pornographic movie. It’s called, “Motion to Recommit.”…
Nero fiddled as Rome burned; SEC staffers watched porn as the economy crashed. A new report from the agency’s inspector general revealed a startling proclivity for sexually graphic materials among certain SEC staffers. The SEC’s inspector general conducted 33 “probes” — yes, that’s the word the Associated Press chose to use, and yes, I am twelve years old — of SEC officials, including 17 “at a senior level.” One senior attorney spent up to eight hours a day viewing and downloading pornography on the job, burning files to CDs and DVDs that he kept around his office. An accountant was…