Turns out that certain employees at the Securities and Exchange Commission weren’t just asleep at the wheel, as it were, when they should have been paying more attention to Bernard Madoff’s worrisome investment activities.


ProPublica via Huffington Post:

The Securities and Exchange Commission is taking a drubbing these days for its abject failure?despite detailed tips?to catch Bernie Madoff in what appears to be the biggest Ponzi scheme in our nation’s history.

Now, thanks to little-noticed report from the agency’s inspector general, we have a detailed glimpse into other bad behavior by some SEC employees.

The report, released the day after Thanksgiving, reveals that some employees at the agency were clearly preoccupied with matters other than their mission of “protecting investors and maintaining fair, orderly, and efficient markets.” The semi-annual report to Congress, which covers the period from this past April to September, details among other things a handful of employees circumventing internal controls to download porn.

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