We recently blogged about a group of scholars whose research shows that whistleblowers are more effective than the SEC at rooting our corporate fraud.

Now, a new investigation by the SEC itself has revealed that SEC staffers were spending their time downloading and watching porn on their computers. At work. On taxpayers' dollars. In fact, more than half of the porn lovers made between $99,000 and $223,000 a year. There doesn't seem to be much more to say than "Blecch," but we always have more to say!

The highlights of the investigation include two employees who were particularly adept at downloading porn and also voracious in their appetites. An SEC accountant tried to access porn sites almost 1,800 times over a two week period on her government-issued laptop. She also managed to download 600 images. The other top-scoring SEC employee was a senior attorney who0 admitted to downloading porn up to eight hours a day (9-5?).

The fact that these employees were engaging in this type of behavior as the economy was crashing is appalling by itself. That SEC employees were apparently spending THE ENTIRE DAY downloading porn at taxpayer expense is all the more outrageous.

There really isn't much of a silver lining to this story, but it may help to explain in part why research shows that the SEC is not as effective as it should be at finding fraud. While the majority of SEC employees are dedicated to their jobs, some apparently feel comfortable enough at work to engage in behavior that should definitely be kept at home. Not so for whistleblowers, who are usually very disturbed by something they have observed and have a personal and professional interest in revealing fraud. Corporate whistleblowers don't have the luxury of holing up in their offices to spend a solid 8 hours downloading porn. Their personal involvement in a corporation obviously puts them at risk, both professionally and personally, but it also gives them a heightened awareness and a bona fide stake in the outcome of a case.

This article is brought to you by The Qui Tam Team, the epicenter for whistleblowers and people interested in the False Claims Act, Qui Tam Provisions, and Medicare and Medicaid fraud. To discuss a potential case, please call Eric Young at 1 (800) 590-4116.