You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know one of the first rules of working in an office: don’t look at porn on your work computer. But what’s even more of a concern is that Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) is seeking to pass a bill that actually states that government employees can’t watch porn at work:
In May, the Environmental Protection Agency’s inspector general disclosed that a senior-level employee was caught spending as much as six hours of his day looking at porn. The IG found that the employee had downloaded and viewed more than 7,000 pornographic files. … Four months later, the employee has not been fired and is still collecting government pay, Environment & Energy Publishing reported last week. Many agencies, including the EPA, have such rules, but Meadows says they are not enforced. EPA’s spokeswoman Liz Purchia confirmed that the porn-watching employee is still employed but on leave.
Frankly, if you can’t get through an eight-hour shift without watching watch Bang Bus, we’re worried about you. Also, those government bathrooms must go through a lot of tissues.
Team Blackness also discussed the Jordan Davis retrial, how it’s still okay to take upskirt pictures in Texas, and the destruction of the Michael Brown Ferguson memorial.
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BGinCHI
Ladies and Gentlemen, our front pager will now attempt the Triple Post.
He sticks the entry!
10.0
kc
I’m shocked that it’s that easy to access porn sites from federal government computers.
Brutusettu
@BGinCHI: You can say that again.
kc
Now he can watch porn 8 hours a day, instead of just 6!
SatanicPanic
@BGinCHI: Lulz, seriously can someone help Elon with this?
srv
You people seem to not understand Red-Light Districts are seriously threatened and this guy was just monitoring the impacts on various species.
IDK why Republicans would have a problem with this – you’d think they’d want more pr0n and less regulating at the EPA.
Roger Moore
@BGinCHI:
I’m seeing only a single copy now. I wonder if there’s something about the podcast that causes problems; it’s definitely caused problems for me with scripts that get caught in infinite loops.
feebog
There is no need for a law, almost all municipal, state and federal agencies have rules governing the personal use of computers and email. I’m wondering what kind of job this bozo had that he could spend that much time watching porn.
Botsplainer
@Roger Moore:
The podcast is a total irritation and makes BJ practically impossible to use on my older ipad.
scav
@Roger Moore: there was some squirrely SQL based script at work that threw out duplication errors for years and we could never quite figure it out. Luckily the errors were semi-systemic so we could deal with them downstream, but they never stabilized enough for us to finally nail the root cause. Every year was a little different.
Still, good to know that FYWP isn’t elitist and messes with front pagers as well as the hoi commenters.
Origuy
@kc: When I worked at Compaq, they installed blocking software for all kinds of things, including gamb-ling and various controversial sites besides porn. We sold computers and software to, among other things, state lot-teries. They were constantly tweaking the list of blocked sites to allow people to get their work done, plus take sites like Doonesbury off the list. Fairly soon they changed the policy. They still can monitor which sites are accessed, but it takes some egregious misconduct to catch their attention. They recognize that occasionally you click on a NSFW link by accident.
CONGRATULATIONS!
Always like posts that beat up on government employees, based on a Republican’s version of events.
Corner Stone
@scav:
Didn’t we conclude that was Omnes’ fault?
Roger Moore
@Corner Stone:
I blame Obama.
Omnes Omnibus
@Roger Moore: I am not Obama.
scav
@Corner Stone: must have been out that day, is Omnes to SQL what Amir is to Futball? or does he require sacrifice for WP only?
Mike in NC
The real question is, how many members of Congress and their staffers are watching p0rn at work? That might be worth looking into.
Corner Stone
@scav: I think he’s more like Ebola. He kept infecting people with the duplicate disease.
Patient Zero, if you will.
Amir Khalid
@scav:
I don’t bring have anything to do with this.
Roger Moore
@Omnes Omnibus:
Then you should be glad I’m blaming him instead of you.
Linnaeus
@srv:
It gives them an opportunity to swipe at government employees – “look at what your tax dollars are paying for”! This doesn’t stop them from trying to reduce or eliminate the EPA’s regulatory scope and authority, because this kind of politics works on multiple levels.
scav
@Amir Khalid: Mea Culpa! Just trying to keep my pantheon contacts list in order — I try not to think too hard about how the numinous become numerous, let alone work out the genealogy on paper or by ichorlines
JaneE
One of the first things our newly hired network administrator did was to review the logs of web traffic. He saw a lot of porn being accessed, double checked to make sure that it was officially against company policy, and put in filters to block the porn. We heard rumbles about some people not being too happy, but hey – they knew it was against the rules. But we did get one actual complaint, from the president of the company. The next day, the filters were changed to allow him unrestricted access to whatever he wanted. And he wanted porn. The administrator kept the statistics, even though he couldn’t do anything about it if he wanted to keep working. That porn was a good percentage of our total traffic. And aside from that, as CEO, he was one of our better executives.
slag
OK. But this law is going to set back Paul Ryan’s staff training schedule by months. It takes way longer to read the book than it does to watch the trilogy.
Calouste
@srv: Wouldn’t surprise me if the employee in question was hired under Bush with the exact brief to do nothing.
Bonnie
The Federal Agency I worked for had the systems people make porn sites impossible for us to go to. We were also monitored so that if someone did try to go to a porn site, there was a record and the person could be fired if caught. There is a law in place already; and it is in the Standards of Conduct for all Federal Employees.
Bobby B.
“Hit & Run” won’t be mentioning this because Meadows has an R after his name and they can’t do their Democrats Killing 1st Amendment shtick.
Xjmueller
In 39 years of fed service in Chicago and DC, I can only say that watching porn sometimes happens and that we discipline or fire folks for it. I know of at least one pre-internet case where a very senior man in Chicago got busted for kiddie porn. He was referred to as a government lawyer, but was actually the head of a large regional operation. We’ve had web filtering in the agencies I’ve worked at since the early aughts. I’ve been on the civilian side my entire career and have seen staff do stupid stuff, mostly before web filtering was common. I can’t speak to how it’s handled on the DoD side.
PurpleGirl
At the non-profit I most recently worked for they had a private use policy that allowed you to use the internet but to keep usage to a minimum (a number of people did have to have access for their official duties). They also had us sign a letter saying we understood what the policy was. If they found you were watching pron, they would block that site. It seemed to work.