As Economy Crumbled, SEC Staffers Surfed for Porn

As the economy teetered on the brink of collapse, Securities and Exchange Commission watchdogs wasted thousands of hours surfing the Internet for pornography on government computers. One accountant tried to access raunchy sites 16,000 times in a single month, and a senior SEC attorney in Washington spent up to 8 hours a day looking at porn, according to a report by the SEC's inspector general obtained by AP.

Many staffers discovered searching for porn in 33 separate probes were senior level workers, with 17 of them earning up to $222,000 a year. The report concluded that the workers violated government ethics rules. "It's 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," said GOP California Rep. Darrell Issa. The SEC was not immediately available for comment.
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