Government
Sen. Mike Bennett Caught Looking at Porn on Senate Floor
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Sen. Mike Bennett caught viewing a pornographic image during session. Claims it was an unexpected email from trusted source
No one will argue that sitting on the Senate floor during session can get a little boring, but looking at porn is probably not the best way to pass the time.
On Thursday morning, Sunshine State News captured exclusive video of Sen. Mike Bennett, R-Bradenton, looking at pornographic material on his state-issued computer on the Senate floor.
Ironically, as Bennett is viewing the material, you can hear a Senator Dan Gelber's voice in the background debating a controversial abortion bill.
"I'm against this bill," said Gelber, "because it disrespects too many women in the state of Florida."
Bennett defended his actions, telling Sunshine State News it was an email sent to him by a woman "who happens to be a former court administrator."
"I was just sitting there, bored as they were debating the abortion bill," Bennett said.
"I opened it up and said holy [expletive]! What's on my screen? and clicked away from it right away."
Sunshine State News could not verify how long the image of four bikini-clad women with their tops exposed was open before our cameras started rolling on it, but it was up for at least three seconds before it disappeared from the screen.
Senate spokesperson Jaryn Emhof explained further on Bennett's behalf.
"There was some confusion about an email he received," said Emhof. "He thought it was an email about an item being debated on the Senate floor. As soon as he realized it wasn't he closed the page."
But the one image we caught on camera wasn't the only thing Bennett had viewed. It appears other files, including at least two videos, may have been downloaded, too. He was also caught on camera watching a video of a dog running out of the water and shaking itself off. It is unclear if he also thought that was an email about a bill being debated on the floor.
We offered Bennett an opportunity to prove his statements to Sunshine State News by showing the executive editor and videographer the email record with a government-related subject line, but after talking to the Senate's top lawyer, he declined to let us see those records.
This revealing video comes just weeks after an investigation found a number of federal Securities and Exchange Commission employees had been spending several hours visiting pornographic websites on government-issued computers when they should have been working.
When asked if he ever looks at pornography while on the Senate floor, Bennett responded, "You'd have to be insane to do that. It all goes through a server. I don't think anybody would be doing that."
Comments (197)
The Senator was in the wrong, BUT, why was Sunshine news filming what someone was looking at and doing on their computer?!
The general subject that this holier-than-thou hypocrite is spending his time on is completely inappropriate for the Senate floor. I couldn't care less what he views on his personal machine in his own time, but looking at bikini girls in the chamber during a debate means he has no respect for the setting, for his colleagues or for his constituents.
While I won't blame him for finding part of his job boring, I do blame him for not being mature enough to handle it.
It goes against any emotional bone in my body, but i have to vigorously defend a politician.
* First: He has not been caught watching any porn. What he watches does not even approach event the most bigoted defintion of porn. If that should be porn, than i would have spent several vacations in a porn camp even without noticing.
* Second: For doing something else during a boring speech, he has my complete understanding. This makes him do his job neither better nor worse. The speeches are no longer part of the political process. It is more important for a politician (in order to get elected) to kiss some babys or his contributors a**es than to give eloquent speeches in parliament. The voters are even more desinterested in those speeches than the politicians.
By using the headline, the Sunshine News is conducting a witch hunt. Even on this site i suspect several readers not to look at the material and to remember just the headlines. I hereby petition to change the headline to "State Senator falsely accused of Looking At Porn On Senate Floor".
CU, Martin
1. Abortion is a hugely hot-button topic for either the Dems or the GOP.
Not only is it unprofessional for him to not be paying attention to something that the public considers extremely important in the matters of privacy, health and rights but it shows a great example of how and why our elected officials get nothing done.
2. What is wrong for one should be wrong for everyone. Fair rules.
Employees of any other company are not allowed to peruse personal emails at work. Websites with games, social networking, chatting, IMs, potentially offensive content, and other such are blocked by company firewalls. They do this to try to decrease distractions and increase productivity at work. The same should hold true for our elected officials. If he didn't have access to these distractions, perhaps he too, could be more productive.
While the news is making mountains out of molehills, touting bikinis as porn, they have a good point. He was caught wasting time, not paying attention when he should have been doing his job. It doesn't matter if he was looking at pictures of sandwiches and ice cream. That's not the topic on the floor at the time.
-a
And the headline should have been that he wasn't paying attention during this session; not that he was looking at "porn". It seem that they kinda missed the point.
What if Obama had been caught with those pics. Would you be defending him? Course not, maroon.
1. Person A advances a sensible assessment of the facts of the matter and critique of the media's interpretation and presentation of events.
2. A vitriolic attack on person A by person B with no founding in reality, and no counter-argument other than a straw-man.
I'm not a US-ian, and both of your major political parties are too far right of centre for me to support...but I have to side with Person A, for the simple reason that he makes sense, and didn't resort to baby-ish name-calling.
It's always fun to find another catholic school survivor.
Semper ubi sub ubi ubique !
Why on earth would you black bar out the girls bikini tops???
This is clearly a manipulated situation. How biased is this rag?
If this publication thinks this is porn then I suggest you stay inside a dark closet and never go out side. You would see worse things at the local Stop n' Rob.
Get a life.
Truth is: a message sent from a "trusted colleague" to a private or public email account, on state-owned computer, displayed in a public place, should be subject to public scrutiny. If the senator has nothing to hide, why doesn't he comply with opportunity to demonstrate his innocence?
1. Where exactly is the porn?
2. Give me your work email address, and I can make you look at porn.
I don't think the image is worth discussing at all. I'm wondering whether he, or his Republican and Democratic colleagues, should be using a laptop.
It's OK if you're a Republican.
The press gallery is right behind him. you don't have to be a genius to point you camera down.
Look at how he pushes the laptop screen back after he's done catching a shot of the girls, sure it's a set up......not. I'm sure he'd viewed it several times earlier and got caught going back to catch a little refresher peek. The pervert's probably home tonight looking at them over again and again.
Is that out of line?
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