• Thanks for stopping by. Logging in to a registered account will remove all generic ads. Please reach out with any questions or concerns.

Navy Commander Busted For Net-Porn

T

the patriot

Guest
Those officers in the navy never seem to learn do they..... :rolleyes: (WARNING: article to follow).

**************************************
**************************************
The Globe and Mail
Navy commander relieved of duty over Internet porn
By ROBERT MATAS
From Tuesday June 19, 2001.

Vancouver — A top navy commander in the Canadian Forces has been temporarily relieved of his duties for accessing several "Penthouse-like" pornography sites on the Internet with a laptop computer provided to him by the Department of National Defence.

Commodore Eric Lerhe, the 52-year-old commander of the fleet of warships on the West Coast, has been charged under the National Defence Act with conduct to the prejudice of good order and discipline.

It‘s the first time such a senior officer has faced such a charge since the Canadian Forces set up an independent investigative unit four years ago, Major John Pumphrey of the Provost-Marshal‘s office said yesterday in an interview.

Cmdre. Lerhe told his supervisor about logging on to the sites after it became clear he may have to sit in judgment over one of his subordinates who had been charged with the misuse of a DND computer.

The Defence Department refused to identify the Web sites Cmdre. Lerhe was viewing. The range of penalties for the offence is wide, from administrative discipline to a formal dismissal with disgrace from the Canadian Forces to imprisonment for life.

The charge has startled several observers, including a spokeswoman for a Vancouver women‘s group.

Pornography changes the way women are viewed, Geraldine Glattstein, executive director of Women Against Violence Against Women, said in an interview.

"It‘s dangerous for women to be supervised by someone who spends his spare time looking at those kinds of Web sites," she said.

Supervisors who go back to the office after accessing pornographic sites are creating a hostile environment for women to work in , she added. "It certainly does not help make [the workplace] more friendly."

Cmdre. Lerhe, who is married but has no children, joined the Canadian Forces in 1976. He told Vice-Admiral Ron Buck last week that he logged on to the pornographic sites when he was deployed out of the country.

Although he was using a Defence Department computer, he was off-duty and using his personal Internet account, he says in a statement posted on the Maritime Forces Pacific Web site. He was not available for an interview yesterday.

Vice-Adm. Buck said the safety of Canadian navy personnel or ships were never in jeopardy. Cmdre. Lerhe was relieved of his command "because the alleged activity is inconsistent with his position of high trust and authority," he said.

The deputy fleet commander, Captain Dan Murphy, has taken over Cmdre. Lerhe‘s command responsibilities.

Canadian Forces policy prohibits the use of the Internet to view sexual materials in any form "for non-work-related use, regardless of the legality of the material." Commanding officers are responsible for providing subordinates with guidance on proper Internet use, enforcing compliance and investigating allegations of misuse.

Cmdre. Lerhe spoke to Vice-Adm. Buck after he was briefed on disciplinary proceedings being taken against one of his sailors charged with the misuse of a DND computer.

As the sailor was one of his direct subordinates, Cmdre. Lerhe realized he could be the presiding officer at the summary trial. "For the next 24 hours, I pondered this," he states.

He acknowledged doing what he did in order to ensure he would not be involved in the trial of his subordinate "and to clear my conscience," he says in the statement.

"I fully recognize that my own actions were against the regulations and that disciplinary actions against me would likely follow.

"I accept this. Since then, I volunteered all the evidence needed to progress the charge laid against me," he states.

Major Pumphrey said the charge resulted from incidents in San Diego on April 1, 2000, and April 2, 2000.

At that time, Cmdre. Lerhe was the commanding officer of the Canadian Forces Maritime Warfare Centre in Halifax. He was appointed commodore and commander of Canadian Fleet Pacific in January, 2001.

The Canadian Forces began its investigation in February. The charge will now be reviewed by a military prosecutor, who will decide if the case will proceed to a court martial. Cmdre. Lerhe has been relieved of his post until the proceedings are complete.

In recent years, the Defence Department has dealt with several incidents of members accessing pornography on the Internet.

In 1997, Defence officials documented at least 175 visits to unacceptable sites on its computers, including a site that claimed to have the best "xxx erotica" and a site of sexually explicit teenagers and adult women.

A National Defence physicist pleaded guilty in 1998 to possession of child pornography. About 6,000 pornographic images were found on his workplace computer or on his disks.
****************************************************************************


-the patriot-Biography of Commodore E. J. Lehre
 
Go figure we can‘t find recruits.
This is PC at its worst.
 
UN F#$*ing beleivable!
Why are personal human rights given sooooo much press, power and validity...EXCEPT when it comes to pornography? Next thing you know it will be illegal for soldiers to have testosterone in their systems!

By the way, for those of you wishing to surf the web...untracably, go to the following site. Any pages you visit from there will remain PRIVATE.

www.safeweb.com

Sua Sponte
 
Originally posted by Cree Warrior:
[qb]UN F#$*ing beleivable!
Why are personal human rights given sooooo much press, power and validity...EXCEPT when it comes to pornography? Next thing you know it will be illegal for soldiers to have testosterone in their systems!

By the way, for those of you wishing to surf the web...untracably, go to the following site. Any pages you visit from there will remain PRIVATE.

www.safeweb.com

Sua Sponte[/qb]


What exactly is so unbelievable? This idiot broke regulations repeatedly and acted in an unprofessional manner. There can be no mitigating circumstances. What possible legitimate reason could he have had for his behaviour? Anyway, I‘ll bet he will still get his pension.

On an Admiral‘s salary, he could afford internet at home if he really needed to get his "fix."

The subject matter is really kind of irrelevant - the media seems to be blowing that aspect of it up. Even if he was surfing through gardening sites, the point is that he was misusing government property and doing so on the taxpayer‘s time.

And I can agree with the sentiments about devaluing women in general by looking at that kind of thing. (Incidentally, women do devalue men in the same ways.) You can‘t legislate against it, or tell people how or what to think, but you can certainly encourage a standard of professional conduct. The Horny Admiral fell short of the mark, he IS the weakest link ....goodbye!
 
What an interesting situation.

First, there is an apparent clear violation of policy - unauthorized use of DND hardware/software. However, it was done off-duty and (IIRC from another article) off any DND installation, and any fees resulting were not paid by public funds.

Second, the commodore came forward voluntarily. How often does that happen? The commodore could have scrubbed any files related to the activity from the DND-owned laptop and no one would ever have been the wiser.

What should be done in light of the magnitude of the misdeed and the candour of the commodore? Put another way, how many people have drafted a letter for private purposes on a DND-owned computer or sent email for other than professional purposes either over DND intranet or a public connection funded by DND? Would anyone be upset if the commodore had been surfing, say, Scientology sites?

I‘m not sure the vision of a CF run by those who hide their transgressions after all the leaders with any sort of ethical backbone have been run out for their misdeeds, great or small, appeals to me.
 
:rolleyes: So I guess everyone that gave their signifigant other that sexy phone call from Bosnia via military phone will have to line up for our just desserts also? :p I‘ll wait for you on the corner and we can all go together! :crybaby: What bull****!!! :mad:
 
This thing double posted my reply again :mad: So I neutralized this one too. :fifty:
 
It‘s funny how Ottawa spends so much time paying attention to this kinda ****, but doesn‘t bother paying attention to the state of our equipment, morale, and force effectivness.
Pornography changes the way women are viewed, Geraldine Glattstein, executive director of Women Against Violence Against Women, said in an interview.
"It‘s dangerous for women to be supervised by someone who spends his spare time looking at those kinds of Web sites," she said.
Supervisors who go back to the office after accessing pornographic sites are creating a hostile environment for women to work in , she added. "It certainly does not help make [the workplace] more friendly."
Waaa!!! :crybaby:
Our job job is to fight and win on the field of battle. I don‘t see how this factors in with that misson. People who are expected to kill and maim other humans are not going to be perfect.
 
Mr. Dorosh,
You must be one of those guys that actually "reads Playboy for the articles".
I could go on indefinitely regarding pornography and wether it dehumanizes people or not. Everyone has differing views on that, kinda like abortion. It is LEGAL however, as far as I understand it the commander was NOT accessing illegal sites, but as stated above he did step forward and admit to violating regulations.
Pornography is legal for a reason, because we have a right to freedom of sexuality. It should not matter here in Canada if you are heterosexual, homosexual, transexual, or extremely "Horney" as you stated. I imagine if the Commander was accessing male erotic sites that nothing would be done, because his chain of command would be afraid of violating his human rights and "marginalizing" him.
Under the UCMJ in the US military is is ILLEGAL to have oral sex, even with your wife! Does that mean they go and charge every married member with a good sex life? No, they use their common sense, which seems to be lacking in this case.

Sua Sponte
 
So what I want to know is, why did the guy get thrown to the lions like this? (OK, maybe "lions" is the wrong term, maybe more like "weasels"). It seems like DND has gone out of its way to get this story in the press, when so many more serious offences are given the old night and fog treatment.

The whole story really has blown up out of nothing. Sure, I can accept that it was unprofessional to use a DND comp. for personal use, but that deserves like a 5 minute interview with higher and a brief suspension of his access to his laptop, not this media circus. And all the PC hand-wringing about porn has my head spinning. If he was looking at the on-line equivalent of Penthouse, which he could equally have just gone to his local variety store and bought in hard copy, then how is it chargeable? OK, there is a segment of society (made up of the 21st-century equivalent of your corsetted spinster great-aunt) who would have you believe that anything and everything that shows a naked human body is a cause of sexism, war, cancer and the drop in the dollar, but I think the other 99% of us - women or men - regard it as a normal expression of sexuality. Of course, anything depicting sex in the context of violence or coercion would be an exception to that, and would be deserving of criminal charges for that matter, but there‘s no suggestion that that was what he was up to. The Globe must have had to look pretty damn hard to find that Glattstein woman.

I do have respect for the guy for coming clean rather than hypocritically condemming the nameless subordinate who he might have had to judge. Lots of others in his position would have looked out for number one. I hope that when this drops back off the front pages that Commodre Lehre gets no more than a slap on the wrist and gets reinstated accordingly.
 
Interesting thoughts here:

It has been suggested here that the subject matter is irrelevant, and the important part is that he was using DND property for personal purposes.

If that‘s so, how may people read/responded to this while at work? Do we all then deserve the same fate?

(After all, this isn‘t an officially acceptable site either...)
 
I am keeping this in perspective. I don‘t think it‘s appropriate to characterize it as any sort of DND-initiated media circus. Once the commodore voluntarily reported, his supervisor was bound to not ignore it and it was therefore bound to come to the attention of the investigative services. Does anyone know how it came to the attention of a reporter? It may have just been a routine backgrounder on D-Net that sparked public interest.

I am still interested in outcomes. OK, so the commodore did Something Bad. The question in my mind: what are the exigencies of the service?

IMNSHO, if the commodore receives more than a light slap on the wrist and is not reinstated, the lesson others will draw is as follows. If I do Something Bad, I can:
a) conceal the evidence; or
b) report it voluntarily.
The outcome of (a) is that I _might_ be discovered and in that case my career comes to a full stop and I lose my pension. The outcome of (b) is that my career comes to a full stop and I lose my pension. Congratulations; we have just reinforced exactly the sort of career-minded CYA that came out in the Somalia wash.

OTOH, the commodore may already be feeling personally shamed. Others in positions of high responsibility with an ethical backbone will observe and say, "Gee, I don‘t want that to happen. I‘ll behave accordingly. And if I do come forward honestly, I should have nothing to fear provided I have only done Something Bad and not Something Evil." Meanwhile, by reinstating him we have to trust that his subordinates will draw the correct lesson:
a) I am led by a commander who did the Right Thing and provided an excellent example of accountability; rather than:
b) Another senior officer gets away, again.
 
Whatever the outcome, it will be interesting to see if they deal with the subordinate in kind. Or will the double standard apply? Or will some small nuance of the offence be ferreted out by AJAG/NIS that will allow two separate outcomes?
 
Once again Brad, you are the voice of reason! Thanks for the interesting information; I know that whenever I go off on a rant half-cocked someone will be here to inform me/correct me.

The key info you provided which I either overlooked before or wasn‘t provided originally was the fact that he was on his own time and that he voluntarily came forward.

Pretty ****ty, then, that it hit the front page of the National Post.

I notice that the Sun buried the article in the back of the paper somewhere.

As always, a good lesson not to assume things without knowing the whole story. The world is full of spin doctors.

But the ultimate question is: who, Brad, do you spin for? ;) ;) ;)
 
According to the latest CBC report, public opinion is in support of Commodore Lerhe. It would seem that over zealous PC efforcement is not what the Canadian public wants to see in our military.
icon1.gif
 
Bloggins asked: "So what I want to know is, why did the guy get thrown to the lions like this? ... It seems like DND has gone out of its way to get this story in the press..."

I‘m not sure that‘s the case. DND issued a straightforward news release saying the Cmdre had been charged under NDA 129. Few details were released. This is SOP following Somalia and complaints that DND "hid" charges. Now, they announce significant charges (in this case, because he was a flag officer), but do not release details except where the offence would be punishable under the Criminal Code.

And, like it or not, when a fleet commander is relieved of command -- in anybody‘s navy -- that spells news.

One can argue for or against the editorial leanings of various media outlets (compare front page 5x7 colour portrait of the Cmdre in one paper with back pages treatment in another paper).

What happens now is the test. Should the Cmdre be respected for doing the right thing and saying "hey, if a sailor is a bad boy for doing this, so am I" ? Yes. Should he get less punishment than the sailor? No.

The real question here is: why is this an offence in the first place? No $ cost to taxpayer. No lost time/productivity from work. No risk of damage to the PC. Why is it illegal to view naked anybody on a DND laptop, but not illegal to watch skin flicks on a DND TV/VCR? Or, to read Playboy / Playgirl / whatever transported to theatre on a DND aircraft? Or to lust after scantily clad dancers in a DND sponsored show tour?

Values and morality are a personal thing and cannot and should not be legislated.

For those that are interested, here is the text of the DND news release which crossed my desk two days ago:

NEWS RELEASE TRANSMITTED BY CCN NEWSWIRE - A SERVICE OF ITG

FOR: NATIONAL DEFENCE

JUNE 18, 2001 - 12:31 EDT

Charge Laid - Conduct to the Prejudice of Good Order and Discipline

OTTAWA, ONTARIO--On June 15, the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service (CFNIS) laid a charge of conduct to the prejudice of good order and discipline against Commodore E.J. Lerhe, Commander Canadian Fleet Pacific, Esquimalt, British Columbia. The charge results from an incident, which allegedly occurred between April 1-2, 2000, in San Diego, California, USA.

Commodore Lehre allegedly made an unacceptable use of an Internet System account, funded by the Department of National Defence and contrary to Defence Administrative Orders and Directives (DAOD).

The CFNIS initiated an investigation in February 2001 after the incident was reported to Vice-Admiral R.D. Buck, Commander Maritime Forces Pacific. Commodore Lehre is charged with one
count under section 129 of the National Defence Act, conduct to the prejudice of good order and discipline.

Vice-Admiral Buck has temporarily relieved Commodore Lehre of command while awaiting the conclusion of judicial proceedings. All inquiries regarding the action taken by Commodore Lehre‘s
chain of command should be directed to Lieutenant-Commander Chris Henderson, Maritime Forces Pacific Public Affairs, (250) 363 5789.


-30-

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:

National Defence
Media Liaison Office
(613) 996-2353/54
After hours: (613) 792-2973
Website: http://www.dnd.ca
or
Lieutenant Normand Chouinard
Canadian Forces Provost Marshal Media Coordinator
(613) 945-0522
(613) 783-8522 (pager)
 
OK, Mr. Towhey, I guess I am guilty of shooting the messenger here. I knew that details of pending courts-martial are routinely published by DND, so I shouldn‘t regard the fact that this came out in the media as exceptional. I was merely surprised to see the story all over the front page of the G&M when so many other stories, both negative and positive, don‘t make it. I couldn‘t help but see the dark hand of the NDHQ spin doctors at play in the background. That‘ll teach me to keep my ingrained cynicism in check.

What I really am outraged by is the severity of the charges. If this had been dealt with in an appropriately low-key fashion, there wouldn‘t have been a press release, and the poor guy‘s reputation needn‘t have been raked through the muck. Ironically it seems like it‘s actually the best thing that could have happened to him. Based on today‘s news it looks like the huge outpouring of public scorn has started the long, agonizing process of a climb down by the prosecution service.

Now, will Commodore Lerhe‘s career survive if the charges are dropped? Or will the effect of making DND look stupid twice be fatal?
 
I have an understanding as to why the charge was laid upon the Commodore. Down the road, the last thing we need are a bunch of sex addicts away from their wives with guns giving the troops orders. Sex addicts often go further than porn and wind up turning into the Paul Bernardo‘s of the world. Furthermore, we all remember that sicko in B.C. who got away with keeping his kiddie porn stash don‘t we?!!

-the patriot- :cdn:
 
Patriot, thanks for the keen observation. We are all sex addicts just for looking at a naked body.
I don‘t see the problem with this. I have seen a good amount of porn in my relatively short time in, and I have never seen it have an effect on the job. In our society, it is considered a vice, just like smoking or drinking, but like I said above, in a job where we are expected to kill other people, you can‘t expect us to be perfect. I can just see the future headlines....

CANADIAN GENERAL CHARGED WITH DERELICTION OF DUTIES.
-A top Canadian General has been charged with dereliction of duties after it was discovered that he stepped out of his CP to have a cigarette.
"We see this as immoral and unethical, since this is such a dirty habit." Said Colonel Wanker of the CF Political Correctness Police.
Cigarette smoking changes the way soldiers are viewed, Nosmo King, executive director of Citizens Against Smoking Around Other People, said in an interview
"It‘s dangerous for soldiers to be supervised by someone who spends his spare time with a dirty, expensive and unhealthy habit." she said.
Supervisors who go back to the office after accessing tobacco cigarettes are creating a hostile environment for soldiers to work in, she added. "It certainly does not help make [the workplace] more friendly with bad breath, second hand smoke, and a propensity for dreaded "nic-fits."
 
The problem is now we have maintaince of good order and discpline by public opinion. This case should have beed an minor displinary action (ie verbal warning) and thats it. We now see reverse discrimination because this was a senior officer. We are now been ruled by the smoke and mirrors crowd and if anyone noticed with a new CDS around.

This guy did the ethical thing and will now suffer. Therefore the ethics bull**** we went through was just for show. This case is proof.

No wonder we have troble recruiting. Its wonder we put up with this.
 
Back
Top