AP: 100s Of White House, Congress, Pentagon Employees Used Adultery Site On The Job

AP via TPM ^ | August 20, 2015 | JACK GILLUM and TED BRIDIS

[don-o]

WASHINGTON (AP) — Hundreds of U.S. government employees — including some with sensitive jobs in the White House, Congress and law enforcement agencies — used Internet connections in their federal offices to access and pay membership fees to the cheating website Ashley Madison, The Associated Press has learned.

The AP traced many of the accounts exposed by hackers back to federal workers. They included at least two assistant U.S. attorneys; an information technology administrator in the Executive Office of the President; a division chief, an investigator and a trial attorney in the Justice Department; a government hacker at the Homeland Security Department and another DHS employee who indicated he worked on a U.S. counterterrorism response team.

[don-o]

Will Trump run with THIS? Not hearing it widely reported.

[grobdriver]

Big surprise.

Washington culture.

[Lazamataz]

Well, not at the Fed facility *I* am aware of. There, all dating sites are specifically excluded and blocked. Heck you can’t even access Yahoo mail or Gmail!

[don-o]

But is it in line with the culture out here in fly over country? I guess we shall see.

[rjsimmon]

Well, not at the Fed facility *I* am aware of.

Maybe NMCI has a waiver???

[Arm_Bears]

On taxpayer time and the taxpayer’s dime, no doubt.

[Ancesthntr]

Anyone with a security clearance who’s done this needs to be fired - it speaks to incredibly poor judgment and opens them up to blackmail.

I don’t care what they do in their personal lives - that’s between them, their spouse and G-d - but opening yourself up to blackmail from the Russians, Chinese, Iranians or Norks is a firing offense to me.

[don-o]

"But AP traced their government Internet connections — logged by the website over five years — and reviewed their credit-card transactions to identify them."

Does this pass the smell test?

[Gaffer]

Let’s put this in perspective of the real problem here.

How many of the outed respondents used an @CLINTONEMAIL.COM address? That’s the real relevancy here.

This is “Squirrel.”

[ilovesarah2012]

And will they be fired? Doubtful.

[Leep]

Haven’t followed any of this.
Do they have any actual conversations (PROOF) or is it just account information? Big difference.

[Steely Tom]

I know a guy - no details here - I know a guy who (1) works at a government facility and (2) accesses any site he wants any time he wants through on his government desktop computer over his government-owned network connection.

I have seen this with my own eyes.

[IYAS9YAS]

Hmmm. First the hack on fedgov employees, now the hack on Ashley Madison... The two couldn’t possibly be related, could they? Finding the fedgov employees who are setting themselves up for blackmail and using them to the fullest has been an old Commie trick for years.

[Lazamataz]

Yes. Unless they proxied outside of the .gov domain — something that if I am not mistaken, borders on criminal behavior — then the .gov domain would be clearly observable. Ashley Madison would log it as a .gov visit. Then the reporters merely need scan the data dump for .gov entries.

[IYAS9YAS]

Well, not at the Fed facility *I* am aware of. There, all dating sites are specifically excluded and blocked. Heck you can’t even access Yahoo mail or Gmail!

Some of them actually used their fedgov email accounts to sign up. They are smart, S-M-R-T, smart.

[Lazamataz]

Then either he’s bypassing existing controls, or proxy-ing once outside the fedgov firewall, or the controls don’t exist at his facility.

[dragonblustar]

Anyone with a security clearance who’s done this needs to be fired - it speaks to incredibly poor judgment and opens them up to blackmail.

Absolutely. Makes you wonder how many were blackmailed?

[Lazamataz]

Some of them actually used their fedgov email accounts to sign up. They are smart, S-M-R-T, smart.

Well SURE! The wife might ACCESS the personal email!

[don-o]

This is “Squirrel.”

When dealing with a firehose of corruption and criminality, multi tasking is a good skill to develop.

[jcon40]

On taxpayer time and the taxpayer’s dime, no doubt”

Isn’t average Fed employee salary $123,000 per yr?

Interesting to see what the minutes logged add up to.