In The Loop
by Al Kamen
Columnist
The Washington Post
Speaking of sex — the topic du jour in Washington — the Interior Department’s inspector general has uncovered an impressive amount of time spent by department employees surfing porn, game, gambling and shopping Web sites.
“Our review of one week of computer use logs revealed over 4,732 log entries relating to sexually explicit and gambling websites” by department computers, said IG Earl E. Devaney ‘s report — titled “Excessive Indulgences.”
“More alarming,” the report said, “was our finding regarding access to on-line game and auction websites: we discovered over 1 million log entries where 7,763 department computer users spent over 2,004 hours accessing game and auction sites during that same week.” In a year, “these veritable shopping and gaming binges could account for 104,221 hours of lost productivity,” equaling the amount of yearly work time put in by 50 employees.
But it’s likely worse, the report continued. “We believe that our estimates of inappropriate use activity are conservative, particularly the amount of time spent at pornographic and/or sexually explicit websites.”
No doubt. And auction and shopping “binges” are nothing in August, when Devaney did his review, compared with what they’d be during the Christmas shopping season.
This Internet use costs taxpayers more than $2 million in lost wages, the report said. (Officials yesterday were not sure how the 80,000-employee department compared with other agencies.)
Department filters “provide some level of protection” but don’t fully block the prohibited sites,” the report said. In a “spot check” in August, “we were able to access sexually explicit photographs at several agencies in the department,” including the National Park Service and other agencies that don’t even have blocking software.
Devaney urged the department to plug the gaps in enforcement and improve blocking software. He also said a better job needs to be done to ensure violators are “held accountable for their actions.”
Accountable? In Washington?
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