The public's right to know

This is Sunshine Week, a national initiative to increase government transparency. Since its inception in 2005, it has helped raise awareness of the importance of open government and freedom of information. It’s about the public’s right to know what its government is doing — and why.

Even though it was launched by journalists, this isn’t just about freedom of the press. It’s about our fundamental right as citizens to information that we own.

The initiative’s website, SunshineWeek.org, notes that “the coverage, commentaries and activities promoting open government … have led to tangible, meaningful changes to people’s lives and the laws that govern them.”

Robert J. Freeman, executive director of the Committee on Open Government in Albany, agrees. Freeman is fond of quoting the late Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, who said that “sunlight is the best disinfectant.” Open-government laws provide a window that might otherwise be shut. Because of these laws we can see who among our local officials is prepared and engaged, who isn’t doing his or her job and who we’d like to see stay in — or leave — office.

Freeman says his organization receives “thousands and thousands of inquiries” every year about the laws, and that only between 15 and 20 percent of them come from the news media.

Although federal “sunshine” laws attract a lot of attention, the reality is that they are most important to the average person at the local level. We need to be able to see what our town, village, police, fire, school and sanitary district officials are up to. The laws enable us to keep an eye on contracts they negotiate and their spending priorities, for example — items that can directly impact government’s bottom line, and our taxes.

New York’s first Freedom of Information Law was enacted in 1974. It governs rights of access to government records, while the Open Meetings Law covers the conduct of meetings of public bodies. Over the years the laws have been updated as information technology has become more sophisticated.