Bill Banning Federal Employees From Watching Porn Passes House Committee

A bill that would ban federal employees from viewing pornography on government computers has advanced passed the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

The Eliminating Pornography from Agencies Act (H.R. 901), which would prohibit federal employees from accessing pornographic or explicit material on government computers and devices, advanced through the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Wednesday.

Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) sponsored the legislation in response to a report last year that an employee with the Environmental Protection Agency was watching as much as 6 hours of porn a day on his work computer and also downloaded 7,000 pornographic files. The employee has not been fired for the offense.

is kind of behavior,” Meadows said.

“While there are rules in place at most agencies to ban this kind of unprofessional and unacceptable workplace behavior, it continues to take place. There is absolutely no excuse for federal employees to be viewing or downloading pornographic materials on the taxpayers’ dime,” Meadows said.

“I’m grateful to Chairman Chaffetz for helping advance this important legislation and his continued leadership on improving accountability at federal agencies,” Meadows added.

For more on this story, see Bill Would Ban Federal Employees From Watching Porn at Work.

About the Author

Ian Smith is one of the co-founders of FedSmith.com. He has over 20 years of combined experience in media and government services, having worked at two government contracting firms and an online news and web development company prior to his current role at FedSmith.