Alpha.gov - potentially an excellent idea - emerges as a typical bloated, technically complex script-ridden site. Only a reckless fool or someone with zero understanding of security would browse with JavaScript generally enabled or accept scripts from untrusted third parties these days, as it's the prime vector for drive-by attacks and exploits are very frequent - the prime reason there are around 10 million botnet members out there at any one time. Pretty much all the important core functionality of this site could be implemented in HTML/CSS. If you feel you have to use JavaScript for trendy effects or "extras", the primary functionality of the site MUST still work with it disabled.
The recent Commons Public Accounts Committee report (http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201012/cmselect/cmpubacc/1050/105002.htm) points out how little attention is given to security by the government's IT and communications strategy, and the Alpha.gov site is currently evidence of this. Security doesn't reside in avoiding crass programming errors, but in the creation of robust systems that address the whole spectrum of threats over the product life cycle. This prototype clearly doesn't. So given this and the government's record for IT and security, before I would contemplate using a site designed like this I would expect to see the results of an exhaustive penetration test. OK, so I'm a security professional, but that means I actually understand the risks. Do you?
The bloated nature of the site also makes it very slow to download and render - no all of us are on super-fast broadband and not everyone is using the latest browser. Thinking of your public should oblige you to accommodate those using older/slower technologies, not to disregard them.
It might also be useful to employ someone on the team who understands the basics of established human/machine interface theory, or at least who knows how to communicate. The front page alone of Alpha.gov is a disorganised postage stamp album of random items with no observable rationale for their order or placement. Come on guys, an intelligent school kid could communicate better than that.
