I wasn't aware there had been this debate in the "hallowed" halls of congress but it shows just how morally bankrupt our government has become.
Congress Debates Whether to Ban Federal Employees From Watching Porn at Work
Jason Mick (Blog) - September 29, 2014 12:00 PM
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Some of these "hard at work" bureaucrats include top officials drawing six figure salaries from taxpayers
Congress has a sticky mess of a debate on their hands. With the nation $17.7 trillion dollars in debt federal employees are literally passing the hours watching porn and masturbating at work all on the taxpayer dime. And the worst part of all is that disciplinary efforts have thus far proven impotent -- no one seems particularly willing or able to fire them.
Critics resolve stiffened after one particularly shocking incident came to light. A senior official with the U.S. Environment Protection Agency (EPA) was found to have downloaded 7,000 pornography files at work. Investigators reported that when the staffer wasn't pounding away on his keyboard he was watching porn on the job -- between 2 and 6 hours of it on an average day.
The employee is a GS-14 staffer, the second highest paygrade in the bureaucratic ladder (GS-15 is the highest). He makes between $106,000 and $139,000 USD per year in income paid for by American taxpayers. During the period when he was rampantly consuming the porn his superiors were also dripping with enthusiasm, awarding him several financial performance bonuses.
Superman pressures mother Earth
Rather than protecting Mother Earth, at least one top EPA staffer was getting frisky on the job.
[Image Source: Filmation]
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Edward Issa (R-Calif., 49th Dist.) complained:
How much pornography would it take for an EPA employee to lose their job?
Seemingly the EPA's official's misconduct fell under statutes forbidding misuse of government equipment and fraudulent billing of hours. But the problem is such statutes are ambiguously defined, in the sense that they don't specifically forbid an employee from watching pornography. As a result Congress's hand were tied. Even after a heated Congressional hearing in May, the best Congress could muster was the bureaucratic equivalent of a slap on the wrist against the offender.
EPA
[Image Source: Free Enterprise]
And he wasn't alone. A U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was found to be watching over an hour a day of porn, according to a report by The Washington Times. The paper quotes auditors as saying the FCC employee watched so much porn on the job because:
He often does not have enough work to do and has free time.
And these are but a few of the many incidents we've heard of. From all the reported problems, one thing appears clear -- many federal employees show no shame in watching explicit videos on the job.
But flaccid reprimands could soon prove a thing of the past. Rep. Mark Randall Meadows (R-N.Car., 11th Dist.) is looking to erect a new statute which could make federal employees viewing porn at work guilty of a fireable -- and possibly prosecutable offense. Rep. Meadows tells the Washington Post:
It's not just casual porn viewing, but hours and hours of unproductive time doing things we shouldn't be condoning. There seems to be a need to reinforce agency rules that might be in place, but not enforced.
In a press release, he adds:
It's appalling that it requires an act of Congress to ensure that federal agencies block access to these sites at work. Allowing federal employees to access pornographic materials in the workplace creates an unprofessional and potentially hostile work environment for fellow workers. This bill is a common-sense measure that ensure federal workers aren’t viewing pornographic materials on the taxpayers’ dime.
The new bill is called the "Eliminating Pornography from Agencies Act" (H.R. 5628). The text of the bill is not currently available, so it's unclear what punishments it might look to put in place to whack off naughty federal employees who are viewing adult entertainment on the job. It's also unclear whether the bill would contain exemptions for military officers deployed in the field, one place where some might find allowing a bit of porn viewing on down time more humane and not a punishable offense.
Rep. Mark Meadows
Under Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) new bill, watching porn on taxpayer dollars could lead to more than a slap on the wrist. [Image Source: Reuters]
Another potential pitfall is that some members of Congress might fear the bill could adversely impact their staffers. Recent studies by pro-copyright reform groups found the offices of many members of Congress actively downloading pornographic torrents including extreme "gangbang" scenes.
GovTrack estimates the bill has a 5 percent chance of passing and being signed into law.
Sources: Rep Mark Meadows, H.R. 5628 on GovTrack, The Washington Post, The Washington
http://www.dailytech.com/Congress+Debates+Whether+to+Ban+Federal+Employees+From+Watching+Porn+at+Work/article36619.htm
