The pervs at the SEC can relax, because now the attention is on the defense and national security communities, where downloading child pornography on government computers is what happens when government officials aren't fighting the war on terror, apparently.

The Boston Globe reports on the Pentagon Inspector General's Office 8-year-old (and in some cases, still pending) investigations into defense and national security employees and contractors — people with top security clearances — stockpiling images and videos of naked children.

It's not just that they're downloading child porn, which is bad enough, but how doing so leaves them vulnerable to blackmail — a particularly bad situation when you have access to classified government intelligence and weapons and shit.

The investigations have included employees of the National Security Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency - which deal with some of the most sensitive work in intelligence and defense - among other organizations within the Defense Department.

The number of offenders is a small percentage of the thousands of people working for sensitive Pentagon-related agencies. But the fact that offenders include people with access to government secrets puts national security agencies "at risk of blackmail, bribery, and threats, especially since these individuals typically have access to military installations," according to one report by the Defense Criminal Investigative Service from late 2009.

This is especially frightening:

At least two of the cases were contractors with top secret clearances at the National Security Agency, which eavesdrops on foreign communications, according to the documents. When one of the contractors was indicted two years ago, he fled the country and is believed to be hiding in Libya, according to a summary of the investigation from last year.

Contractors, man. Fuckin' contractors.

[Photo via Getty]