Covertly surfing the Internet at work is an activity federal employees long ago turned into a high art form. Of course to be successful at checking up on your Facebook page or your fantasy football team while on the clock, a certain level of discretion is required.

Apparently several Securities and Exchange Commission employees never got that memo. Then again, there usually isn't time to be careful when you're spending all of your time at work looking up the latest developments in the world of porn.

According to a recent report in The Washington Times, at least 24 SEC employees and contractors over the past two years have faced internal investigations after being caught viewing pornography on their government-owned computers. There's stealing time, and then there's stealing sexy time. Congratulations SEC employees, you have successfully achieved the latter!

In response to a FOIA request placed with the SEC's Inspector General's office, the Times received over 150 pages of redacted records and transcripts concerning agency investigations into cases of employees using their time at work to look up Web pornography.

And we're not just talking about a quick glance at some forbidden flesh here either. According to the Times report, one regional supervisor was found to have received about 1,880 Internet "access denials" for porn sites over a 17-day period. When confronted about this creative use of his time, the supervisor admitted that his habits had become "kind of a distraction."

Another employee estimated that he had spent at least part of his workday for over a year looking up pornography. "I justified it because I would work late and I rarely would put in for any kind of comp time or anything like that," the frisky fed claimed.

"They're simply just stealing time," Alan Bachman of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners told the Times. "They're getting paid to do something that they're not supposed to be doing." Bachman's definition of stealing time is rather broad, making a coffee run during work hours is something you "aren't supposed to be doing" yet no one would really consider it to be "stealing time." Then again a mid-afternoon caffeine fix doesn't usually involve pants being taken off, so there is a slight difference.

"Any level of misuse of government resources for inappropriate purposes is a matter of serious concern," SEC spokesman John Nester told the paper. He added that the agency "provides regular and comprehensive training on the proper use of the Internet."

Nester went on to note that the number of access denials reported from SEC computers isn't necessarily an accurate reflection of just how much inappropriate material is being looked up. "A single click onto one website that itself may not be blocked can trigger up to dozens of ‘access denial' hits, one for each banner or ad on the webpage that might be blocked by our software," he said.

While it may be tempting to laugh at the SEC's porn problem, and believe us it is tempting, the IG's investigation has had some pretty serious consequences. Some employees caught in the agency's investigation took it upon themselves to resign from their posts, while others took a three day suspension and tried their best to not completely embarrass themselves.

Making sure your employees don't spend all day at their desk looking up the naughtier corners of the interwebs is not exactly the toughest task in the world. But then again, the SEC isn't exactly known for realizing the obvious.

It is totally understandable that fed workers feel the need to blow off a little steam during a long and often thankless workweek, but there has to be a better way. Casual dress Friday perhaps...or maybe complimentary bagels the first Monday of every month? Something, anything really, that doesn't involve 5 minute video clips of activities we dare not describe in this space.