Sunshine Week Editorial

The Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, Mississippi)
March 18, 2008

 

This is Sunshine Week, but it doesn't have anything to do with Mississippi glorious springtime-like weather.

Sunshine Week is a national initiative every year to call attention to the importance of openness in government and freedom of information. The news media, civic groups, libraries, schools, non-profits and other people interested in open government participate. It is non-partisan and has no political agenda other than encouraging people to participate in their government through better access to information that makes for good government for everyone.

Mississippi has a lot of problems with secrecy in government, which leads to bigger problems. It creates bad public policy, denies citizen participation and fosters a lack of accountability. In other words, secrecy creates bad government.

Earlier this year, state newspapers, The Associated Press and the Mississippi Center for Freedom of Information provided a series of reports on problems in Mississippi involving closed government caused by weaknesses in the state's open meetings and public records laws.

One of the biggest problems has been access to crime reports, denying citizens access to basic public safety information in their communities. The exemptions in the act for "personnel matters" and proprietary information can be, and often are, abused by officials seeking to shut the public out. State law also allows officials up to 14 days to respond to a citizen request for records, which is an unreasonable delaying tactic.

Things are changing. The new Legislature appears more open to openness. The House has approved a bill to open crime incident reports. It currently is before the Senate. Another bill to loosen the open meetings law concerning a Gulf Coast airport authority was killed in the Senate last week. It remains alive in the House.

Comprehensive ethics reform has been approved by the Senate with provisions to give citizens an avenue to object to closed meetings other than filing expensive lawsuits.

On the national level, the federal Freedom of Information Act recently was renewed and strengthened. Last week Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and John Cornyn, R-Texas, introduced legislation to further strengthen the FOIA Act by making Congress more accountable if it attempts to add exemptions to the act.

There remains much to do to improve openness laws, but it starts with attitudes and citizen vigilance. Public officials should always err on the side of openness. Citizens should hold officials accountable.

Sunshine Week should remind all of us that this country was built on freedom and a government in which the people are sovereign. Openness equals good government. Freedom basks in sunshine. Insist on it.

LEARN MORE

* To learn more about Sunshine Week, visit the Mississippi Center for Freedom of Information at mcfoi.org or the Sunshine Week Web site at sunshineweek.org.