Incensed by the cost of lost productivity due to federal employees playing computer games, Senator Lauch Faircloth introduced an amendment yesterday that was passed unanimously by the US Senate. It requires that all computer games be removed from federal government computers.

　　The amendment was attached to the Treasury and General Government Appropriations Act for 1998 and states in part, "he head of each agency shall take such actions as {ARE?}necessary to remove any computer game program not required for the official business of the agency from any agency computer equipment," and that future installation of any games will also be prohibited.

　　Any computers purchased by a government agency cannot come with games already loaded, unless the agency can prove as per a clause in the amendment that purchasing computers without games would be more expensive than just leaving them loaded.

　　The Republican senator from North Carolina was alarmed by the prevalence of games on government computers and the ease with which one could switch between regular programs and computer games, explained David Landers, an aide. "The senator's amendment was partially inspired by the efforts of Governor George Allen of Virginia to ban computer games from his state's government computers," said Landers.

　　Senator Faircloth's office did not attempt to catalog all the games found on government computers as it would have too expensive and time-consuming but stated that the most popular games were Solitaire and Minesweeper. The amendment must still survive the House's version of the appropriations bill and President Clinton must sign it, but at this time no opposition to the ban on computer games is known.