You have to read this to believe it: SEC Porn Problem: Officials Surfing Sites During Financial Crisis, Report Finds. “The investigation, which was conducted by the SEC’s internal watchdog at the request of Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, found 31 serious offenders during the past two and a half years. ”
And we wonder why Wall Street stays several steps ahead of the regulators. Here are a few takeaways from the report.
- “One senior attorney at SEC headquarters in Washington spent up to eight hours a day accessing Internet porn….
- When he filled all the space on his government computer with pornographic images, he downloaded more to CDs and DVDs that accumulated in boxes in his offices.”
- “An SEC accountant attempted to access porn websites 1,800 times in a two-week period and had 600 pornographic images on her computer hard drive.”
- “Another SEC accountant used his SEC-issued computer to upload his own sexually explicit videos onto porn websites he joined.”
- “And another SEC accountant attempted to access porn sites 16,000 times in a single month.”
- “In one case, the report noted, an employee tried hundreds of times to access pornographic sites and was denied access. When he used a flash drive, he successfully bypassed the filter to visit a “significant number” of porn sites.”
On one hand, I find this report hard to believe. On the other hand, as a former Wall Street analyst, I am not that surprised given the disdain and lack of respect Wall Street has for regulators.
This report shows that expecting regulators to keep up with and compete with Wall Street financiers is like expecting an amateur athlete to compete with a world-class athlete…no contest.