TECHNOLOGY AND THE BUSINESS OF GOVERNMENT

Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag spoke at a Government Executive leadership breakfast on Tuesday and talked about the Obama administration's effort to close the federal government's "IT gap," a situation in which many agencies work on computer systems -- or on no systems at all -- that are woefully behind what the private sector has. (As an illustration, he showed a photo of what he called "the cave" in Pennsylvania, where federal employee records are stored in row upon row of metal file cabinets. Loose wires dangled from the ceiling.)

With the IT gap, "it's impossible to move to a new level of productivity" in government, he said.

But don't expect an increase in the $80 billion federal IT budget to fill that gap, Orszag said. "I'm not sure we need more money," he explained. We need "better management of the money we are already spending." The Obama administration proposed a relatively flat IT budget for fiscal 2011.

When asked if he was ruling out more money for IT in the future, Orszag replied, "I'm not ruling out more. . . . But more money isn't always the solution and can be counterproductive because it doesn't force choices that lead to more efficiency."

Researchers have worked to find a link between violence in video games and aggressive behavior. The findings can be conflicting and confusing.

But that hasn't stopped Venezuela from passing a law banning violent video games and toys that can be used in violent play. The penalty for being found guilty of selling or playing a violent video game? A fine and up to two and a half years in prison.

The law demands video games "promote respect for life, creativeness, safe entertainment, friendship, tolerance, understanding and peaceful coexistence."

No word yet from Venezuelan teenage boys - or their parents who have to listen to the whining.

Marc Ambinder, who blogs for Nextgov sister site Atlantic.com, raises an issue for agencies that have created a Facebook page -- which seems like just about every agency.

Case in point: The State Department Facebook page had, up until very recently, two links to Web pages for Barack Obama as maintained by the Democratic National Committee and the one set for Joe Biden by his now defunct political committee. As Ambinder points out:

You can access these pages through, say, the Department's page for the Kabul embassy. It is the 21st century equivalent of putting up Obama for America yardsigns on the lawn of a U.S. embassy. Now -- this is a tiny and inconsequential violation of the rules, but it does seem to break the Hatch Act, which prohibits government from promoting political entities.

A State spokesperson said the pages would be removed.

It's not unrealistic to think that agencies will stumble over regulations and laws like this as they learn the social networking ropes.

Wired's Ryan Singel wrote a long post in the site's Threat Level blog arguing that much of the concern over the security of the Internet is being fueled by federal contractors, which would benefit financially from the government pursuing policies to lock it down and to track 'Net users.

He argues that recent high-profile hacks are not an indication of cyberwar, but rather overstated and inflamed rhetoric meant to generate cyber business and for the government to have a valid reason to control Web information. "This battle isn't about truth. It's about power," he wrote.

Our colleagues at Government Executive point to a blog post that highlights a 1995 Newsweek article on how the Internet will fail. A great line: " . . . no computer network will change the way government works."

And this:

Visionaries see a future of telecommuting workers, interactive libraries and multimedia classrooms. They speak of electronic town meetings and virtual communities. Commerce and business will shift from offices and malls to networks and modems. And the freedom of digital networks will make government more democratic.

Baloney.