The Hawaii-based head of U.S. Pacific Fleet vowed this week to prosecute any personnel involved in the nonconsensual posting of degrading photos of female sailors to websites.

“I see behavior like this as an ‘insider threat’ to our fleet’s ability to be an effective fighting force,” Adm. Scott Swift said in a message to sailors Tuesday.

“Those who have until now thought they could behave this way with anonymity or without consequence will find out they are flat wrong,” Swift said. “Make no mistake, this is a warfighting issue, and I intend to take full advantage of the opportunities provided to us by the (Uniform Code of Military Justice) to pursue these cases to a greater extent than may be possible in civil venues.”

Publicity over nude and sometimes sexually explicit photos of female U.S. service members being posted nonconsensually to websites has brought condemnation from top military leaders, a Navy investigation and a scramble to fix the problem.

“The lack of respect for the dignity of anyone wearing the cloth of our nation is divisive and unacceptable,” Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr., commander of U.S. Pacific Command, based on Oahu, said on Twitter. “Let me be blunt here — we absolutely need to do more to ensure that our own workforce understands that we can never tolerate misogynistic thinking or actions.”

According to Reveal news from The Center for Investigative Reporting, alarm was raised after the nonprofit news organization brought to the attention of the Marine Corps the existence of a closed Facebook group called “Marines United” that had nearly 30,000 followers.

Photographs of nude female service members were sometimes accompanied by obscene comments. In one case a female Marine at Camp Lejeune, N.C., was followed and photographed by a fellow Marine so the photos could be posted, Reveal news said. The Marine who took the photos was kicked out of the Corps, according to the site.

A Senate Armed Services Committee hearing was held Tuesday over the Marines United Facebook group, but pictures of female service members in various states of undress have been posted for years on a variety of sites, including Tumblr pages, in some cases with accompanying photos of the service member in uniform with identifying name tags.

“In this case we are all confronting the unique challenges posed by the advent and proliferation of social media, which, like any technology, is an enabler, an enabler of incredibly good and decent things but also dark and troubling things,” U.S. Sen. John McCain from Arizona, Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said during the hearing.

Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert Neller said some victims have stepped forward to report being targeted. “We need others to come forward,” he said at the hearing. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service can be reached here.

Neller said at a March 10 news conference that a task force was created to keep up with the Navy investigation and look at other actions that can be taken. Asked about potential limitations in the Uniform Code of Military Justice regarding sexual pictures that were taken consensually and then shared, Neller said, “I’m not going to get into penalties and what the outcome is going to be. … I think that’s something that this task force is going to help us understand, is what can we do, what can’t we do and what potentially needs to be changed.”

U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier, a Democrat from California, introduced legislation Thursday “to close a massive gap” in the UCMJ by prohibiting military service members from sharing intimate images without the consent of the individual depicted.

“Marines United is just the tip of the iceberg,” Speier said in a release. “Websites with nude pictures of women in the military distributed without their knowledge and consent undermines our armed forces, unit cohesion and combat readiness.”

In a message to all commanders fleetwide, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson said the demeaning activity offends so many because fundamentally, “this is not how we treat true teammates” who will depend on each other in war.

“I expect you to make it crystal clear that to remain the world’s most powerful Navy we must be 100 percent focused on staying ahead of our competition, which starts with leadership and teamwork, built on trust and respect,” Richardson said.