October 6, 2006

Foley Wasn’t Only Public Servant Using Web for “Excessive Indulgences”

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Turns out Mark Foley wasn’t the only public servant using his taxpayer-funded Internet access for a bit of extracurricular activity. “Excessive Indulgences,” a new report [PDF] from the Interior Department (with a cover that screams “stock photography of illicit activity”—Bare midrift! Slot machines! Grocery shopping! Chess!), reveals that in a single week, DOI employees accesed thousands of sex sites, sometimes up to an hour at a stretch. A couple even got busted for surfing child porn at work. DOI staff is also really into online auctions and gambling: The report calculates that they spend 104,000 hours a year bidding and betting. C’mon, House Republicans! You gonna let a bunch of pencil pushing bureaucrats show you up like that?

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Managing an independent, nonprofit newsroom is staggeringly hard. There’s no cushion in our budget—no backup revenue, no corporate safety net. We can’t afford to fall short, and we can’t rely on corporations or deep-pocketed interests to fund the fierce, investigative journalism Mother Jones exists to do. That’s why we need you right now. Please chip in to help close the gap.

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