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US government technology often has a well-deserved reputation for being expensive and terrible.

Computer systems sometimes work With Sputnik era software. A Pentagon project to modernize military technology, Five years from now there is little to show. During the coronavirus pandemic, millions of Americans have struggled to get government help. unemployment insurance, vaccination appointments and food stamps due to bureaucracy, inflexible technology and other problems.

Whether you believe the government should be more or less involved in the lives of Americans, taxpayers deserve good value for the technology we pay for. And most of the time we don’t understand. a part of Robin Carnahanjob is to take care of this problem.

Carnahan, a former Missouri secretary of state and a government technology consultant, was one of my guides on how public sector technology could work better. Then in June, approved As director of the General Services Administration, the agency that oversees government purchases, including technology.

Carnahan said he and other Biden administration officials want technology used in wars or tax returns to be as efficient as our favorite app.

“Bad technology ruins good policy,” Carnahan told me. “We are on a mission to make government technology more user-friendly and smarter about how we buy and use it.”

Carnahan highlighted three areas she wanted to address: First, change the technology purchasing process of government agencies to recognize that technology requires constant updates. Second, simplify technology for people using government services. Third, making it more attractive for people with technical expertise to work for the government, albeit temporarily.

Of course, all this is easier said than done. People in government have promised similar changes before, and it’s not a quick fix. Technology dysfunction is also often a symptom of weak policies.

But in Carnahan’s view, one way to build faith in government is to prove it can be competent. And technology is an important area to show this.

Building this competency starts with something very boring – budgeting and purchasing. Carnahan told me last year that governments finance digital infrastructure like bridges. They buy once and try not to think too much for the next few decades. This mindset is incompatible with technology that works best with continuous improvement and maintenance.

Carnahan said he’s trying to spread the message to Congress and government agencies that predictable amounts of government funding distributed over time are a better approach to purchasing technology. Carnahan said the government should consider technology like Lego sets, with parts that are regularly replaced or rebuilt. (Hey, metaphors work for me.)

It also hopes to use technology to help relieve headaches that make it difficult for people to access public services.

As an example, Carnahan stated that he wants to significantly increase the number of government services available through: login.gov. There, people can create a single digital account to interact with multiple services, such as applying for a government job or applying for disaster relief for a small business.

And like many people in government, Carnahan is a field for people with technical expertise to work in the public sector. Its appeal is part pragmatism and part patriotism. “Government is the single best way to have an impact on people’s lives,” Carnahan said.

He said working remotely makes government jobs more realistic for people who don’t want to move to Washington, and there are programs like this. US Digital Service and new US Digital CorpsThis allows technologists to work with officers for short periods of time.

Carnahan isn’t claiming that it will be easy to replace decades of relative dysfunction in government technology. But he believes technology is crucial now that it’s the primary way people interact with local, state, and federal governments, whether it’s registering to vote or getting help with a Medicare claim.

“Getting goddamn websites up and running is the main thing people expect from government these days,” he said.

Before you go …

• How do we ensure children’s safety online? US law more or less prohibits internet services from having users under the age of 13. My colleagues at the New York Times Opinion I spoke to young children who were online despite restrictions, and revealed that the US has learned from the new UK child protection guidelines.

  (The Opinion Today newsletter has a backstory about these smart kids. register here.)

• A hammer falls on the spyware: Apple has sued NSO Group, an Israeli company whose software has been misused by governments to spy on the smartphones of human rights activists, journalists and dissidents. My colleague Nicole Perlroth said that the case and the recent US government blacklisting of NSO, There may be steps towards greater control of the global spyware market.

• Thoughtful gift ideas! Brian X. Chen, consumer technology columnist for The Times, cool ideas for tech-related holiday gifts These are not gadgets. (I bet Brian’s wife will love her digital photography class. Don’t spoil the surprise.)

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I’m obsessed with the NASA spacecraft that launched today. mission to crash into an asteroid the size of a sports stadium to lead him astray. Yes, this is a bit like the plot of the movie “Armageddon”.

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