Reports: Porn viewed on state computers. Investigations looked at highway workers

[Ian David]

By Andrew Welsh-Huggins
Associated Press

COLUMBUS - Highway department employees viewed or downloaded porn and pictures of "pretty girls" several times last year in state offices and on state-owned computers around Ohio, according to internal Department of Transportation investigations.

Computers were used to look at pictures of women at five locations around the state between February and October, according to agency investigative reports reviewed by the Associated Press.

In a non-computer case, employees at a state highway garage in Knox County maintained a well-known secret: lockers jammed with dozens of pornographic magazines, including Playboy, Penthouse and Hustler.

"It is the same as looking at the sports page," one employee told investigators of his numerous trips to flickr.com, a popular photo sharing Web site, to find pictures of women. Asked by an investigator if they were suggestive, he said, "Yeah, pretty girls."

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The agency paid $49,870 this year for Websense, a Web site blocking service that prohibits access to sites deemed inappropriate by the agency, including sex, sports and religious sites.

The agency also paid $5,840 for software that looks for patterns of inappropriate or suspicious computer use.

In most cases, that tracking software triggered last year's investigations into employees' viewing of adult material.

One employee, an environmental supervisor with the agency, told investigators he initially visited the Web sites to see if state computer filters were working.

"Then I succumbed to sinful lust," said the employee, who resigned in October.

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