A Lot of Inappropriate Email at the IRS

Paul Caron at Tax Prof has the full scoop. Here's a taste:

The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration has released Inappropriate Use of Email by Employees and System Configuration Management Weaknesses Are Creating Security Risks (2006-20-110):

This report presents the results of our review to determine whether the IRS's email system was being used properly by employees and was secured by system administrators.

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IRS employees are violating provisions of the personal use policy with their email usage. Specifically, [the IRS inspector] found inappropriate email messages in 74% of the employee mailboxes reviewed. These inappropriate email messages contained chain letters, jokes, offensive content, and sexually explicit content. The IRS' personal use policy protects the organization from employee actions that might harm or bring unnecessary risk to the organization.

So government employers have the same problems as private sector employers.  No surprise there. But 74%.  Wow!  You know you would think that with all the workplace monitoring of computers these days, government agencies like the IRS would be in the forefront.  Apparently not.

I wonder though if the number of inappropriate emails is as high in the private sector, or are these numbers somehow related to scintillating work the IRS performs?

PS