SEC sued over porn scandal; attorney wants names

A lawyer in Denver has filed a suit against the Securities and Exchange Commission, demanding the names of the SEC employees who were recently disciplined for viewing pornography on government computers. Arguing that SEC employees' salaries are paid by taxpayers, attorney Kevin D. Evans wants the names of the dozens of agents who were caught surfing the Web for explicit images during work hours over a five-year period. “Most of these people were lawyers. If lawyers in a private practice engaged in this kind of activity, and billed clients during it, there would be disciplinary action at the very least,” Mr. Evans said. “The fact that these were government officials doesn't exclude them.” When SEC inspector general David Kotz unveiled the results of the investigation, he said the employees had been disciplined, but declined to release their names. (Read the complaint.) Mr. Evans, an attorney with Steese Evans & Frankel PC, filed the suit May 8, three months after it tried to obtain the names through a Freedom of Information Act request, according to the complaint. While the SEC responded to some aspects of the FOIA request, it refused to provide the names of the employees, citing exemptions to FOIA. “The documents the SEC did produce demonstrate that several unnamed SEC employees have been voracious voyeurs of pornographic and sexually explicit Web sites using SEC computers during SEC work hours,” states the complaint, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Denver. The complaint lists 58 pornographic Web sites that agents visited. Mr. Evans plans to make the names of the employees public if he wins the case. “I feel like I have case law on my side,” he said. John Heine, an SEC spokesman, declined to comment.