{"id":3426,"date":"2009-09-30T05:15:59","date_gmt":"2009-09-30T09:15:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.geneveith.com\/?p=3426"},"modified":"2009-09-30T05:15:59","modified_gmt":"2009-09-30T09:15:59","slug":"on-the-job-at-the-national-science-foundation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2009\/09\/on-the-job-at-the-national-science-foundation\/","title":{"rendered":"On the job at the National Science Foundation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Some employees of the taxpayer-funded National Science Foundation are not spending their days doing science. The agency is reportedly plagued with a pornography epidemic<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Employee misconduct investigations, often involving workers accessing pornography from their government computers, grew sixfold last year inside the taxpayer-funded foundation that doles out billions of dollars of scientific research grants, according to budget documents and other records obtained by The Washington Times.<\/p>\n

The problems at the National Science Foundation (NSF) were so pervasive they swamped the agency\u2019s inspector general and forced the internal watchdog to cut back on its primary mission of investigating grant fraud and recovering misspent tax dollars.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo manage this dramatic increase without an increase in staff required us to significantly reduce our efforts to investigate grant fraud,\u201d the inspector general recently told Congress in a budget request. \u201cWe anticipate a significant decline in investigative recoveries and prosecutions in coming years as a direct result.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nThe budget request doesn\u2019t state the nature or number of the misconduct cases, but records obtained by The Times through the Freedom of Information Act laid bare the extent of the well-publicized porn problem inside the government-backed foundation.\n

For instance, one senior executive spent at least 331 days looking at pornography on his government computer and chatting online with nude or partially clad women without being detected, the records show.<\/p>\n

When finally caught, the NSF official retired. He even offered, among other explanations, a humanitarian defense, suggesting that he frequented the porn sites to provide a living to the poor overseas women. Investigators put the cost to taxpayers of the senior official\u2019s porn surfing at between $13,800 and about $58,000.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe explained that these young women are from poor countries and need to make money to help their parents and this site helps them do that,\u201d investigators wrote in a memo.<\/p>\n

The independent foundation, funded by taxpayers to the tune of $6 billion in 2008, is tasked with handing out scientific grants to colleges, universities and research institutions nationwide. The projects it funds ranges from mapping the genome of the potato to exploring outer space with powerful new telescopes. It has a total of 1,200 career employees.<\/p>\n

Recent budget documents for the inspector general cite a \u201c6-fold increase in employee misconduct cases and associated proactive management implication report activities.\u201d The document doesn\u2019t say how many cases were involved in the increase, and officials could not immediately provide a figure. . . .<\/p>\n

Another employee in a different case was caught with hundreds of pictures, videos and even PowerPoint slide shows containing pornography. Asked by an investigator whether he had completed any government work on a day when a significant amount of pornography was downloaded, the employee responded, \u201cUm, I can\u2019t remember,\u201d according to records.<\/p>\n

They do this on the job? While they are being paid?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote><\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some employees of the taxpayer-funded National Science Foundation are not spending their days doing science. The agency is reportedly plagued with a pornography epidemic. Employee misconduct investigations, often involving workers accessing pornography from their government computers, grew sixfold last year inside the taxpayer-funded foundation that doles out billions of dollars of scientific research grants, according […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ethics","category-science"],"yoast_head":"\nOn the job at the National Science Foundation<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Some employees of the taxpayer-funded National Science Foundation are not spending their days doing science. 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