9 D.C. workers fired for viewing porn (but wait...there's more...)
9 D.C. workers fired for viewing porn
Michael Neibauer, The Examiner
2008-01-24 08:00:00.0
Current rank: # 12 of 8,421
WASHINGTON -
Nine D.C. government employees were fired Wednesday and 32 more will be disciplined for viewing pornographic Web sites thousands of times on the job last year, Mayor Adrian Fenty announced.
The worst offender, according to data provided by the Office of the Chief Technology Officer, was a single employee whose computer registered 48,002 porn site page views in 2007. That averages to about one hit every 2.5 minutes, if one assumes the person worked eight hours a day, five days a week for 50 weeks.
“Obviously this is not just egregious behavior,” Fenty said during a news conference at One Judiciary Square. “This behavior is reprehensible.”
The nine terminated employees, whose computers were confiscated and forensically audited, worked for the offices of the attorney general, contracting and procurement and property management, as well as the Child and Family Services Agency. They registered between 19,665 and 48,002 hits last year, officials said, not just browsing pornographic content but also downloading it to their computers.
Attorney General Peter Nickles said the investigation, sparked in mid-December by a tip from a worker in the property management office, revealed no evidence of access to child pornography. No identifying information was provided about the terminated employees.
“This is not at all typical” of the D.C. work force, Nickles said.
The 32 disciplined workers, all of whom registered more than 2,000 hits, are employed by 18 agencies, including the D.C. Public Schools, the police department, the D.C. Council and the Executive Office of the Mayor, officials said. Their sanctions will range from warning letters to suspensions.
The initial investigation only tackled the 10,000 District computers monitored by WebSense, a porn-tracking and filtering software. Chief Technology Officer Vivek Kundra said the city will purchase another 20,000 WebSense licenses at a cost of $142,000.
The District’s 8-year-old regulation banning the misuse of government computers was “just a policy on a piece of paper,” said City Administrator Dan Tangherlini. All adult content will now be blocked, he said, and any person who attempts to visit a XXX site will be redirected to a page explaining the city’s anti-porn policy.
Pornography, as defined by WebSense, includes sites that display full or partial nudity in a sexual context, that show erotica or sexual paraphernalia, that support sex-oriented businesses, or that depict or graphically describe sexual acts.
Heavy viewers
The District government’s top five on-the-job porn viewers of 2007
Employee A: 48,002 hits, one every 2.49 minutes
Employee B: 43,887 hits, one every 2.73 minutes
Employee C: 39,117 hits, one every 3.06 minutes
Employee D: 32,234 hits, one every 3.72 minutes
Employee E: 26,912 hits, one every 4.46 minutes
Assuming an eight-hour workday, 250 days a year
Michael Neibauer, The Examiner
2008-01-24 08:00:00.0
Current rank: # 12 of 8,421
WASHINGTON -
Nine D.C. government employees were fired Wednesday and 32 more will be disciplined for viewing pornographic Web sites thousands of times on the job last year, Mayor Adrian Fenty announced.
The worst offender, according to data provided by the Office of the Chief Technology Officer, was a single employee whose computer registered 48,002 porn site page views in 2007. That averages to about one hit every 2.5 minutes, if one assumes the person worked eight hours a day, five days a week for 50 weeks.
“Obviously this is not just egregious behavior,” Fenty said during a news conference at One Judiciary Square. “This behavior is reprehensible.”
The nine terminated employees, whose computers were confiscated and forensically audited, worked for the offices of the attorney general, contracting and procurement and property management, as well as the Child and Family Services Agency. They registered between 19,665 and 48,002 hits last year, officials said, not just browsing pornographic content but also downloading it to their computers.
Attorney General Peter Nickles said the investigation, sparked in mid-December by a tip from a worker in the property management office, revealed no evidence of access to child pornography. No identifying information was provided about the terminated employees.
“This is not at all typical” of the D.C. work force, Nickles said.
The 32 disciplined workers, all of whom registered more than 2,000 hits, are employed by 18 agencies, including the D.C. Public Schools, the police department, the D.C. Council and the Executive Office of the Mayor, officials said. Their sanctions will range from warning letters to suspensions.
The initial investigation only tackled the 10,000 District computers monitored by WebSense, a porn-tracking and filtering software. Chief Technology Officer Vivek Kundra said the city will purchase another 20,000 WebSense licenses at a cost of $142,000.
The District’s 8-year-old regulation banning the misuse of government computers was “just a policy on a piece of paper,” said City Administrator Dan Tangherlini. All adult content will now be blocked, he said, and any person who attempts to visit a XXX site will be redirected to a page explaining the city’s anti-porn policy.
Pornography, as defined by WebSense, includes sites that display full or partial nudity in a sexual context, that show erotica or sexual paraphernalia, that support sex-oriented businesses, or that depict or graphically describe sexual acts.
Heavy viewers
The District government’s top five on-the-job porn viewers of 2007
Employee A: 48,002 hits, one every 2.49 minutes
Employee B: 43,887 hits, one every 2.73 minutes
Employee C: 39,117 hits, one every 3.06 minutes
Employee D: 32,234 hits, one every 3.72 minutes
Employee E: 26,912 hits, one every 4.46 minutes
Assuming an eight-hour workday, 250 days a year