HANDRAHAN: Executive branch porn problem

Allen W. Dulles, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) wrote in “The Craft of Intelligence,” “sex and hard-headed intelligence operations rarely mix well.” Perhaps the boys at the Pentagon need a refresher course.
This past week, the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency warned its staff not to view porn on U.S. government computers. The Pentagon also released a report on April’s Secret Service Colombian scandal. The two are connected.
In April, I said the Colombian scandal exposed a national security problem, the epidemic of U.S. government employees viewing porn — child porn — on government networks. I suggested readers type “Transportation Security Administration,” “U.S. State Department,” “Pentagon,” “Immigration and Customs Enforcement” and “child porn” into Google’s search field to understand the scope. I neglected to include “Missile Defense Agency.”
Bloomberg quotes a cybersecurity expert saying the Missile Defense Agency’s use of porn is concerning because “many pornographic websites are infected and criminals and foreign intelligence services such as Russia’s use them to gain access and harvest data.”
The only possible response is: Duh.
In 2006, the deputy press secretary for the Department of Homeland Security was arrested for trying to seduce online someone he thought was a teenage girl. Four years later, the Securities and Exchange Commission found that 17 of 31 employees caught accessing porn at work since 2008 — one for up to eight hours a day — were senior staff.
In 2010, the Boston Globe reported that senior Pentagon staff were downloading child porn. Instead of generating a media storm, the story died. Senior staff were watching the sexual torture of small children on Pentagon computers, and Americans were not outraged?
The latest revelation of missile-defense staff using porn should have America extremely alarmed. It is not yet confirmed if child porn was involved.

READ MORE