So I just read this piece on Brietbart about a congressman that wants to block porn from government computers.
I have so many thoughts on this issue, I’ve decided to re-post the article below, along with my comments …
An Inspector General’s Report showed that one employee of the Environmental Protection Agency was watching 6 or more hours of pornography every day on his office computer. The employee had downloaded 7,000 porn files onto his taxpayer-owned computer. As of last September the EPA had still not fired him from his $120,000 a year job.
Six hours per day?
If he works an eight-hour shift, that means 25% of his workday is spent NOT watching porn.
Think about that for a minute. Think about your job and your daily responsibilities. Now imagine finding a spare six hours to watch the latest Tara Tainton or April Flores video. Moreover, imagine being able to do so while surrounded by your co-workers.
How is this even possible?
I’m pretty sure a McDonald’s employee would get fired for watching porn on his smartphone while flipping burgers. But hey, land yourself a $120,000 a year job at the EPA, and it’s porn playground!
The EPA employee is far from the only one. An employee with the Federal Communications Commission spent up to eight hours a week on office porn watching. He said it was due to boredom.
How could he be bored? I mean, come on! This is the FCC. He could’ve been spending his time fining entertainers for exercising their first amendment rights. And certainly there’s always some audacious performer that’s exposed a a millimeter of her areola.
In the real world, when employees are bored, it means they don’t have enough work to do. And that typically results in either termination or an increased workload.
One Treasury Department employee viewed upwards of 13,000 porn images in a six-week period.
Eh, that’s not hard to do. What else ya got?
Investigations have been conducted at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Commerce Department, and the General Services Administration.
Viewing porn on office computers is already against governmental guidelines. [Congressman Mark] Meadows hopes to tighten that up with the Eliminating Pornography from Agencies Act. Meadows said, “It’s appalling that it requires an act of Congress to ensure that federal agencies block access to these sites.”
So let me get this straight. We can send troops and drones to foreign lands and wipe out thousands of innocent civilians without an act of Congress, but if we want to make sure our federal employees aren’t wasting time salivating over “busty teens” or “sex-starved milfs” while at work, we require an act of congress? Seriously?!
It is not a difficult thing to do. Amtrak’s Acela, for instance, blocks any site related to pornography, even Playboy, from those using Amtrak’s proprietary WiFi services.
Access to porn through WiFi services is an issue on the low-boil around the country. Some activist mothers are trying to have porn blocked at public libraries but are running into resistance from First Amendment advocates, including the American Library Association.
I once saw a guy watching porn at the library. I thought to myself, “wow, we’ve come a long way from sneaking peeks at national geographic magazines and photography books.”
Donna Rice Hughes, who runs a group called Enough is Enough, is running a campaign to get Starbucks and McDonald’s to block porn sites from their restaurant WiFi networks.
I wonder how those conversations start?
“Can I get a Grande coffee in a venti cup with 2 pumps hazlenut, 2 pumps vanilla, 2 pumps caramel, 2 equals and 4 sweet and lows, filled ot the top with cream, with extra cream on the side, double cupped with no sleeve, a stir stick, and stopper put in the top?” Oh, and that creepy guy over there in the fancy suit just googled ‘amateur scissoring,’ and I’m pretty sure he’s not trying to teach himself the fine art of origami.”
Mind-boggling
Look, I’m sure not every government employee is watching porn all day. I would even argue that these are probably isolated incidents. But we really need to re-evaluate a few things if the only solution to getting a federal employee to NOT watch porn while at work is to introduce legislation.
The absurdity of it all is mind-boggling.
Jeff Siegel
The Libertarian Treehugger
