Ali Felski of Sunlight Labs has created a truly amazing reimagining and redesigning of USA.gov, the chief portal to the federal government for the American public. Check it out now.

As Ali notes in her post, this type of reimaging would require a change in government policy regarding persistent cookies.

The Federal Web Managers Council recently called for a change in policy on the use of persistent cookies (for the use of social media and elsewhere):

The National CTO or OMB should immediately rescind the previous guidance prohibiting persistent cookies to better serve customers’ needs. The new guidance should state that it’s acceptable for agencies to use social media sites that rely on persistent cookies. However, the government should retain the ban on tracking cookies, since they specifically track where visitors go between sites.

Also noted is this letter from Eric T. Peterson of Web Analytics Demystified, which contains a good history of persistent cookies policy, calling for a reversal this ban.