The “Science” of Porn
Editor's Note: Tonight on AC360°, don't miss Joe Johns report on the government scientists who are accused of surfing for porn on your tax dollars
Joe Johns | BIO
CNN Correspondent
This story is kind of an anachronism.
When you think about it who doesn't know that surfing porn at work is a no-no? And what makes it even more bizarre is that out of six people allegedly visiting sexually explicit web sites while at work at the National Science Foundation, one of them is being described as a "senior official."
So, OK, we like to think that the people at the NSF are really smart. But this guy, according to an inspector general's report, wasn't just clicking around occasionally on the "down-low." The report said he was spending something like 20 percent of his time at work trolling around on the dark side of the Internet - allegedly looking at sexually explicit images and engaging in explicit online chats with various women. The inspector general calculated the value of the time lost at more than $58,000 - for that one worker. A senior official? Go figure.
It might have been forgettable since he quit when he was told he was being fired, except for the fact that the NSF gets billions from the Treasury – $6 billion to promote the progress of science and advance national health. Put it under the heading of your taxpayer dollars at work.
Republican Senator Chuck Grassley is writing letters and demanding explanations. As a ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, he's asked the NSF's inspector general for all documents related to the investigation. Grassley says the government is looking at other computer servers at the foundation to find out if anyone else is surfing for sex instead of science.
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Filed under: 360° Radar |
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they should concentrate on giving government employees something useful to do with their time – and then fire them if they don't get their job done. The time spent spying to see if people are looking at nudie sites is a waste of time – as is this article.
Why not report instead on how Bank of America, Citibank, Goldman Sachs (and others) just stole trillions from us all. That's something to get mad about – this sex stuff is just diversion – both for the people looking at it – and for those who pretend to get so upset about other people looking at it.
Grow up people!
The sad thing is that surfing for porn is probably not even near the worst thing that the employees are doing on our dime. Can you say "powerless"?
Porn at work? Rotten!!! I suggest CNN dig a bit deeper into this story... Internet and cell phone enabled porn and sex addiction are running rampant, to the level of an epidemic, ruining careers and families – America's dirty little secret!
Why all the discussion about money that Congress is going to spend the way they like. We're getting worked up for "nothing" which is our exact portion of the bailouts.
I can't even get into hotmail at work let alone a porn site (not that I would go there if I could...)
I have worked for county governments, school districts and hospitals. None of these employers allow employees to browse aimlessly on the internet. Everything is blocked with the exception of things like news sites, Map Quest, Google and Wikipedia; for example. How is it that other places allow this? This should not be a problem; sites are easily blocked.
Funny how this has come out. This situation needs to be monitored across the nation. Civil Service employees at Federal Bases abuse the internet with Porn, along with abuse of government telephone lines while at work chatting with opposite sexes for hours and hours at a time. I caught my husband using hours and hours of the fire department time while at work chatting on their phones so he would not be caught. This issue must be addressed and if jobs need to be cut, then so be it. It is our tax dollars that are paying for this type of behaviors to continue.
In our district if caught on an inappropriate website, your are terminated. This is employment action situation not a national concern and should be handled by the offender's supervisor. Come on folks, let's understand that a few folks don't mean that all scientist are perverts.
It's very sad that companies have to go to great lengths to stop people from going into these sites during working hours. What ever happened to work ethics. People should be held accountable for doing things that aren't allowed during working hours. Most major companies have a great security department who can check on employees but I imagine that not all companies do this. Take a look at who was running these big corporations that are all going under right now and need bailouts. If these guys did their job properly we wouldn't be in the state we're in. Just try calling any major phone company because you need help to solve a problem, How many times do we have to call to get the problem fixed. No one seems to be accountable. It should start with the top.
People need to use their common sense while on the clock. It's bound to catch up with you if you slack off especially sufing adult sites.
Government spending pays for war, bad banking, frivolous projects.... why not entertainment? Too bad this is a reality. Who will monitor it?
Why don't they just block the websites from corporate access?
Somehow I find that embarrassingly predictable. At least they're attempting to better regulate the surfing-to-working ratio. But if anyone is even mildly surprised... guess that serves as a pretty good reality check.
I know some people that got fired for playing on the dark side at work and no it wasn't me. Lots of time and money gets wasted on this "hobby". People need to realize that any good computer department is logging every website they visit and are looking for those who go to these sites. Big Brother is watching and even when he's slow he will get you in the end.
The Government should regulate more the businesses that are in trouble because with Idiots CEOs that spend their time surfing for porn, their company are going down along with our economy and our tax money!!!