The White House is on Google+, are you? If you aren’t, you might want to get involved if you want the chance to be part of a Google Hangout with the Prez himself. The White House joined Google+ two days ago, announcing its intention to make use of the Hangout feature. Now the — understandably complicated — details of exactly how it will work have come to light.

Piracy is bad, mmkay? No, that’s not exactly what this new White House-backed anti-piracy PSA says, but it would be far more effective than its mantra of “only a few dollars,” which is as irrelevant as it is nonsensical. Yes, there’s a new entry in the tradition of painfully misguided anti-piracy PSAs and this one aims all its ire at strange, peripheral targets and only hits them ineffectually. Hey guys, buying counterfeit DVDs directly causes crime, and leads to drugs apparently.

At 2 pm yesterday, the National Emergency Alert System was put to the test with a message sent from the White House. The system is designed, in theory, to interrupt all television (cable and broadcast) and radio to alert all Americans of a crisis. It was created way back in 1963 to alert the nation of impending nuclear war. What? You didn’t see the test? Well, that’s not all together surprising, because it failed miserably.

If you haven’t heard, Congressional Republicans are threatening to shut down the government at midnight today if Democrats don’t bow down to their budgetary demands, and since some of them entail things like eradicating funding for Planned Parenthood, it’s a safe bet that that won’t happen.

What’s that got to do with tech? Well, according to the National Journal, White House staffers have been harshly warned not to use their government-issued BlackBerrys during a potential government shutdown. Apparently, they “face the threat of up to two years in jail”  if they don’t comply.

“People are VERY clear on not using BlackBerries [if they're nonexempted] after a shutdown,” one source said, speaking on condition of anonymity in discussing an internal White House matter with the press. “Same with nonexempted [employees] using their personal BlackBerries [for government work]. Total nonstarter.”

Well, at least there aren’t any good apps to tempt them.

(via National Journal. h/t @gabrielsnyder)

There’s been a lot of WTF-news making the rounds recently. Try this one on for size: Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), at it again, proposed a bill last week that would effectively bestow the president with the authority to “seize control of or even shut down portions of the Internet,” writes CNET.

Bill S.3480, or the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act (PCNAA), has been dubbed the Internet “kill switch.” According to the legislation, in the case of national emergencies, any private company that relies on the U.S. “information infrastructure” would be forced to comply with any orders (e.g. encrypt data, install a patch, or block web traffic) given by the president via the National Center for Cybersecurity and Communications (NCCC), a proposed agency that would be created under the Department of Homeland Security. I guess American freedom only goes so far!

ABC News is reporting that the Obama White House, in response to the SEC‘s suing Goldman Sachs for fraud, bought an ad for the Google search terms “Goldman Sachs SEC“ as part of an online ad campaign for financial reform. A simple search for those terms led to a page titled Organizing America that serves as a call to action for people frustrated with Wall Street.

According to Phil Noble, founder of Politics Online:

A keyword search for advertising is nothing new, but they have incorporated keyword searches into their daily war room activities. These guys are reacting to what’s in the news and creating a minute-by-minute strategy.

Goldman Sachs’ people weren’t slouches about it either:

Not even the White House can ignore the power of the Google. TechPresident picked up on this subtle use of phrasing by the White House blog to optimize the SEO of their posts … in this instance, how to cause them show up higher on Google search results.

Which was something the White House was extra interested in last week when the Internet was afire with health care reform: