DENVER, March 9 (UPI) -- Securities and Exchange Commission staff in seven regional offices were found viewing pornography on the job, the U.S. agency says.
Replying to a Freedom of Information Act request by Denver lawyer Kevin Evans, the SEC said last week the employees were in the Denver, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Fort Worth, Texas, and Washington, D.C., offices.
The agency's inspector general revealed last year that 33 employees and contractors were investigated for viewing pornographic or sexually explicit Web sites on federal computers and time from 2005 through 2010. Many of them were at a senior level and highly paid.
The new letter, reported by KMGH-TV in Denver, did not specify the number of "counseled or disciplined" staff at each office.
The contract employees involved worked for Labat-Anderson, CACI International, Garda Security, Keane Federal and ISN Corp., the letter said.
Evans, a securities attorney who defends SEC targets, told the station, "When somebody's … supposed to be out there protecting us from fraud, etc., and instead what they're doing is wasting our taxpayer dollars, sitting there pleasuring themselves at that office, that really upsets me."
