Employees of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the sheriff of the financial industry, spent hours daily surfing porno-sites as the global financial crisis was unfolding, the ABC News television channel reported.
A report obtained by the ABC revealed 31 serious offenders for the past two and a half years, who used agency's computers for watching websites with pornographic content. Seventeen of them are senior SEC officers, who are paid annual salaries between $100,000 and $222,000.
"These guys in the middle of a financial crisis are spending their time looking at prurient material on the Internet," the television channel quoted Peter Morici, a professor at the University of Maryland and former director of the Office of Economics at the U.S. International Trade Commission, as saying.
According to the report, one senior attorney at the SEC headquarters in Washington spent eight hours a day accessing various Internet porno-sites and after he filled all free space on his agency's computer with inappropriate images and video he downloaded more on CD's and DVDs, keeping them in boxes in his office.
"It's reckless, and indicates a contempt for the taxpayer and the taxpayer's interest in monitoring financial markets," Morici added.
The ABC said that, according to sources, some of the big offenders are still on the job at the SEC.
MOSCOW, April 24 (RIA Novosti)
