Lying to employer is not good idea (Score 1)

...just do as you're told as far as "looking for porn" but if you find any, notify/warn the employees involved in a subtle manner while telling your employer that you didn't find anything...

This is crazed! A sysadmin is someone who has responsibility to see to it that her/his network is not being used in a manner that could lead to harrasment lawsuits, and the passing of pornography can do exactly that. And then to lie to the employer about it is asking for trouble, let alone tipping off the offender!

I'm a sysadmin, too. And yes, I've looked at a fair share of porn, some of which would be considered in extremely poor taste, perhaps, but never on company time and never on the company wire.

The company the writer works for has a right (in the US) to protect itself from litigation, and if that means preventing someone from collecting and transmitting porn over the company owned network, then it is incumbent on the sysadmin to assist in that defense. A well-written internet policy should be in place to protect the sysadmin as well as the company, and it should be clearly understood by the other employees that they can expect monitoring... and take their chances, if they violate the policy.