Frat parties at National Science Foundation, 'overwhelming' porn and romantic travel, but had time to give cash to ClimateGate figures

• National Science Foundation "employees were generally reluctant to make any official report or complaint because the misconduct involved a senior staff member" and they feared for their own jobs.

The National Science Foundation has been overwhelmed with members watching pornography and taking taxpayer funded romantic trips with subordinates, yet found time to give hard earned US taxpayer money to discredited Hockey Stick creator Mike Mann (1/20/10 report) and another ClimateGate figure Kevin Trenberth, who found that global warming is hiding and he can't find it. 4/12/10.

• Even luckier for climate guys is the NSF says it's unable to do its normal checking on cash it hands out due to

burdens of massive employee fraud. Robbed from hard working US taxpayers, awarded by a sort of frat party group with

• little or no oversight.

NSF inspector general: "We anticipate a significant decline in investigative recoveries and prosecutions in coming years

• as a direct result." (9/29/09)

The National Science Foundation itself was given $3 billion in US taxpayer dollars

• in 2009 from the so-called economic stimulus plan. (1/15/09).

9/29/09: "Employee misconduct investigations, often involving workers accessing pornography from their government computers, grew sixfold last year inside the taxpayer-funded foundation

• that doles out billions of dollars of scientific research grants, according to budget documents and other records obtained by The Washington Times.

The problems at the National Science Foundation (NSF) were so pervasive

• they swamped the agency's inspector general and forced the internal watchdog

• to cut back on its primary

mission of investigating grant fraud and recovering misspent tax dollars.

• "To manage this dramatic increase without an increase in staff required us to significantly reduce our efforts to investigate grant fraud," the inspector general recently told Congress in a budget request.

"We anticipate a significant decline in investigative recoveries and prosecutions in coming years as a direct result."

• The budget request doesn't state the nature or number of the misconduct cases, but records obtained by The Times through the Freedom of Information Act laid bare the extent of the well-publicized porn problem inside

• the government-backed foundation.

For instance, one senior executive spent at least 331 days looking at pornography on his government computer and chatting online with nude or partially clad women without being detected, the records show.

• When finally caught, the NSF official retired. He even offered, among other explanations, a humanitarian defense, suggesting that he frequented the porn sites to provide a living
• to the poor overseas women. Investigators put the cost to taxpayers of the senior official's porn surfing at between $13,800 and about $58,000.

"He explained that these young women are from poor countries and need to make money to help their parents and this site helps them do that," investigators wrote in a memo.

The independent foundation, funded by taxpayers to the tune of $6 billion in 2008,

• is tasked with handing out scientific grants to colleges, universities and research institutions nationwide. The projects it funds ranges from mapping the genome of the potato to exploring outer space with powerful new telescopes. It has a total of 1,200 career employees.

Recent budget documents for the inspector general cite a "6-fold increase in employee misconduct cases and associated proactive management implication report activities." The document doesn't say how many cases were involved in the increase, and

• officials could not immediately provide a figure.

Documents obtained by The Times through an open records request show the foundation's inspector general closed 10 employee misconduct investigations last year, up from just three in 2006. There were seven cases in 2007. Of the 10 cases closed last year, seven involved online pornography, records show. However, those figures don't include pending cases.

Leslie Paige, a spokeswoman for the nonpartisan watchdog Citizens Against Government Waste, called the situation "inexcusable."

• "What kind of oversight is there when they have to shift people from looking at grant fraud to watch for people looking at pornography?" she said....

The foundation's inspector general uncovers scientific misconduct that can force the return of misused grant money to the government but told Congress

• it was diverted from that mission by the porn cases.

The office was unable to immediately provide an estimate of how much money the projected decline in investigative recoveries will cost taxpayers.

• According to congressional reports, overall investigative recoveries by the watchdog agency totaled more than $2 million for the year ending March 31.

The pornography problem came to light earlier this year, when the inspector general's office published short summaries of several recent cases in a semiannual report to Congress....

• The newly obtained documents provide fresh evidence that the problem wasn't just an embarrassment:

• It was expensive and often went undetected for long periods of time.

The names of all of the employees targeted in the pornography cases were redacted from the more than 120 pages of investigative documents released to The Times. Names were withheld because none of the employees was subject to criminal prosecution, recent civil court action or debarment.

• The documents don't include cases that the foundation examined internally without the inspector general's involvement.

"The employees who were investigated were disciplined in one way or another," Ms. Topousis said, adding that she could not comment on individual disciplinary actions.

• One foundation employee paid an unspecified sum last year after investigators found that during a three-week period in June 2008, the worker perused hundreds of pornographic Web sites during work hours. That employee received a 10-day suspension.

In an official notice of the decision, the foundation called the conduct "unprofessional and unacceptable," but also noted the employee's work history and lack of any previous disciplinary actions.

As for the unnamed "senior executive" who spent at least 331 days looking at pornography at work, investigators said

• his proclivity for pornography was common knowledge among several co-workers.

"At the same time, employees were generally reluctant to make any official report or complaint

• because the misconduct involved a senior staff member and employees feared

• that they would suffer in some form of complaining,"

the investigators later wrote in a summary of the case.

Another employee in a different case was caught with hundreds of pictures, videos and even PowerPoint slide shows containing pornography. Asked by an investigator whether he had completed any government work on a day when a significant amount of pornography was downloaded, the employee responded,

• "Um, I can't remember," according to records....

Suspended for 10 days, the employee unsuccessfully appealed the decision after arguing that it was too harsh. Other employees were terminated.

• Another employee who stored nude images of herself on her computer told investigators she mistakenly had downloaded the pictures. She received counseling and was told to adhere to the foundation's policies on computer use.

The foundation is hardly the only government agency to be embarrassed by disclosures about employees looking at pornography at work.

• The inspector general for the Securities and Exchange Commission noted in a report last fall (2008) that it had recently conducted three investigations into employees who misused government computers to view pornography.

At the time of the report, one employee had been fired and another suspended, while disciplinary action against a third was pending."

• Washington Times by Jim McElhatton, "Porn surfing rampant at US Science Foundation"

• "NSF should review stimulus grants to scientist involved in e-mail scandal," 2/16/10

• "Mann claims his hockey stick was given "clean bill of health"" 4/19/10

National Science Foundation $10.5 million grant to PBS station WNET investigated for misuse by the station, 9/16/09, instances ongoing since 2000.

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