Workers Surf Porn

For one Federal Communications Commission worker, his porn habit at work was easy to explain: 

Things were slow, he told investigators, 

so he perused it "out of boredom"

...for up to eight hours each week.

Lack of work has emerged time and again in federal investigations, and it's not just porn, nor is it confined to the FCC. Across government, employees caught wasting time at work say they simply didn't have enough work to do, according to investigation records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

"He stated he is aware it is against government rules and regulations, but he often does not have enough work to do and has free time," investigators wrote of another federal employee, this one at the Treasury Department, who viewed more than 13,000 pornographic images in a six-week span.

Investigations at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Commerce Department and the General Services Administration have turned up similar cases, though memos show the employees rarely face criminal prosecution for time and attendance fraud.

FCC spokesman Mark Wigfield said only that the agency follows Office of Personnel Management guidelines on disciplinary matters and officials could not comment on specific cases.

In another recent case, a GSA employee who spent about two hours a day on a computer looking at pornography and dating sites "sometimes became bored during these long hours at the computer and would often use the computer for personal use to pass the time," according to a case report by the GSA inspector general last year.

In a more recent and far more costly example, U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board paralegals received salaries and bonuses for years even though they spent much of their time watching television, shopping online, exercising and wasting time on their tablet computers, according to an investigation released this week by the Commerce Department's inspector general. 

Investigators estimate that more than $4 million was spent paying employees for time they weren't working.

The paralegals, who can't create their own work, later told investigators that the reason was simple: Supervisors weren't giving them any assignments. Some supervisors were reluctant to give paralegals special projects out of fear that the assignments could antagonize the labor union.

Brian Miller, a former GSA inspector general who is now managing director of the consulting firm Navigant, said executives may feel reluctant to let go of employees.

"Today, federal managers are under many constraints," he said. "With hiring freezes and budget limitations, a federal manager may hoard resources, squirreling them away for fear of losing even unneeded resources.