Do Government have a role in IT-Security?

Sometimes when I listen to politicians I get the feeling that they are looking for the perfect legislation that will fix all IT-Security issues in the world...which leaves us with many frustrated politicians...as there is no easy fix. The simple fact is that Internet is a big jigsaw puzzle and the beauty (and the cause of many problems) is that no-one "owns" the Internet. Internet profs the existence of an "invisible hand" where many forces co-exists with their own purpose to create something as fantastic as this gigantic electronic network. As in any parts of life, some forces are good...some are stupid and some are evil. Funny enough politicians often do not realise that they have legislation put in place already...there are laws against stealing...untruthful marketing and so on.
But I still think that our governments around the world has a job to do..make sure that they protect citizen data. Governments store an incredible amount of data about every citizen and they should protect our data with their life (or at least with their jobs). Why is this different from the enterprise world? Because I can choose to do or not to do business with a company but I cannot stop paying my taxes...(at least I have not tried).
One more thing, after they have done the job right they should share with the rest of the world how they secured our data so others can learn from what they done. The government is a big buyer and have more resources then most companies...and as it is our money they spend...let us make sure that we can learn from their mistakes.
Now we just have to convince them about this as well.