| Sunshine Week | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Date | The week containing March 16 |
| 2023 date | March 12–18 |
| 2024 date | March 10–16 |
| 2025 date | March 16–22 |
Sunshine Week is a U.S. nonpartisan collaboration among groups in the journalism, civic, government and private sectors that shines a light on the importance of public records and open government. It is based at the Joseph L. Brechner Freedom of Information Project
In 2025, there will be a Sunshine Fest held in Washington, D.C.
Sunshine Week occurs each year in mid-March, coinciding with James Madison's birthday.
During Sunshine Week, news organizations, civic and watchdog groups, libraries, nonprofits, schools and other participants engage public discussion on the importance of open government through news and feature articles and opinion columns; social media campaigns; infographics; editorial cartoons; public service advertising; public seminars and online or in-person forums. The purpose of the week is to highlight the fact that "government functions best when it operates in the open." [1] In many states, however, legislatures exempt themselves from public-records laws, claiming "legislative immunity." [2]
The Florida Society of Newspaper Editors launched Sunshine Sunday in 2002 in response to efforts by some Florida legislators to create scores of new exemptions to the state's public records law. The following year, the idea of a national Sunshine Sunday was raised at an American Society of Newspaper Editors Freedom of Information summit.
In the planning stages, it was decided that the initiative needed to be more than a single Sunday, and Sunshine Week was established in March 2005 by the American Society of Newspaper Editors, with funding from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.The first nationwide Sunshine Week took place March 13–19, 2005.
In 2019, ASNE and the Associated Press Media Editors merged to form the News Leaders Association (NLA). In December 2023, NLA placed Sunshine Week with the Brechner FOI Project at the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications.
Freedom of information in the United States relates to the public's ability to access government records, meetings, and other information. In the United States, freedom of information legislation exists at all levels of government: federal level, state level, and local level.
The Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552, is the United States federal freedom of information law that requires the full or partial disclosure of previously unreleased or uncirculated information and documents controlled by the U.S. government upon request. The act defines agency records subject to disclosure, outlines mandatory disclosure procedures, and includes nine exemptions that define categories of information not subject to disclosure. The act was intended to make U.S. government agencies' functions more transparent so that the American public could more easily identify problems in government functioning and put pressure on Congress, agency officials, and the president to address them. The FOIA has been changed repeatedly by both the legislative and executive branches.
Judicial Watch (JW) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit American conservative activist group that files Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits to investigate claimed misconduct by government officials. Founded in 1994, Judicial Watch has primarily targeted Democrats, in particular the administrations of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, as well as Hillary Clinton's role in them. It was founded by attorney Larry Klayman, and has been led by Tom Fitton since 2003.
The National Security Archive is a 501(c)(3) non-governmental, non-profit research and archival institution located on the campus of the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1985 to check rising government secrecy, the National Security Archive is an investigative journalism center, open government advocate, international affairs research institute, and the largest repository of declassified U.S. documents outside the federal government. In the four decades of its history, the National Security Archive has spurred the declassification of more than 15 million pages of government documents by being the leading non-profit user of the U.S. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), filing a total of more than 70,000 FOIA and declassification requests.
The Freedom of Information Act 2000 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that creates a public "right of access" to information held by public authorities. It is the implementation of freedom of information legislation in the United Kingdom on a national level. Its application is limited in Scotland to UK Government offices located in Scotland. The Act implements a manifesto commitment of the Labour Party in the 1997 general election, developed by David Clark as a 1997 White Paper. The final version of the Act was criticised by freedom of information campaigners as a diluted form of what had been proposed in the White Paper. The full provisions of the act came into force on 1 January 2005. The Act was the responsibility of the Lord Chancellor's Department. However, freedom of information policy is now the responsibility of the Cabinet Office. The Act led to the renaming of the Data Protection Commissioner, who is now known as the Information Commissioner. The Office of the Information Commissioner oversees the operation of the Act.
Public records are documents or pieces of information that are not considered confidential and generally pertain to the conduct of government.
In United States law, the term Glomar response, also known as Glomarization or Glomar denial, means to respond evasively to a question with the phrase "neither confirm nor deny" (NCND). For example, in response to a request for police reports relating to a certain person, the police agency may respond: "We can neither confirm nor deny that our agency has any records matching your request." The phrase was notably used to respond to requests for information about the Glomar Explorer.
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press(RCFP) is a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., that provides pro bono legal services and resources to and on behalf of journalists. The organization pursues litigation, offers direct representation, submits amicus curiae briefs, and provides other legal assistance on matters involving the First Amendment, press freedom, freedom of information, and court access issues.
When government agencies outsource basic services to third-party non-profit contractors, one consequence is that the public may lose its access to information about the service that the public would have retained, had a government agency carried out the service directly.
The First Amendment Coalition (FAC) is a nonprofit public interest organization committed to freedom of speech, more open and accountable government, and public participation in civic affairs. Founded in 1988, FAC's activities include "test case" litigation, free legal consultations on First Amendment issues, educational programs, legislative oversight of bills in California affecting access to government and free speech, and public advocacy. In 2016, lawyer and journalist David Snyder became the organization's executive director.
The Freedom of Information Act 1982(Cth) is an Act of the Parliament of Australia which guarantees freedom of information (FOI) and the rights of access to official documents of the Commonwealth Government and of its agencies to members of the public. It was passed by the Australian Parliament on 9 March 1982, and commenced on 1 December 1982.
Sunshine Review was an American nonprofit organization that advocated for increased government transparency.
SpotCrime.com is a Baltimore-based company founded in October 2007 and privately owned by ReportSee, Inc. Its purpose is to provide nationwide crime information about arrests, arsons, assaults, burglaries, robberies, shootings, thefts and vandalism. SpotCrime generally maps data for any police agency which supplies open data access to crime data. Data mapped by SpotCrime is mainly sourced from police departments and news reports.
Ryan Noah Shapiro is a doctoral student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Doctoral Program in History, Anthropology, Science, Technology, and Society (HASTS), a U.S. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) researcher, and an advocate for animal rights.
Carol Marbin Miller is a senior investigative reporter at The Miami Herald. Marbin Miller began covering social welfare programs at the St. Petersburg Times in the 1990s. She joined The Miami Herald in 2000 and has reported extensively on Florida's services to children as well as the state's juvenile justice system, programs for people with disabilities, mental health and elder care.
Access to public information and freedom of information (FOI) refer to the right of access to information held by public bodies also known as "right to know". Access to public information is considered of fundamental importance for the effective functioning of democratic systems, as it enhances governments' and public officials' accountability, boosting people participation and allowing their informed participation into public life. The fundamental premise of the right of access to public information is that the information held by governmental institutions is in principle public and may be concealed only on the basis of legitimate reasons which should be detailed in the law.
Corinna "Cori" Zarek is an American lawyer, public interest technologist and adjunct professor of media law.
The Illinois Freedom of Information Act, 5 ILCS 140/1 et seq., is an Illinois statute that grants to all persons the right to copy and inspect public records in the state. The law applies to executive and legislative bodies of state government, units of local government, and other entities defined as "public bodies". All records related to governmental business are presumed to be open for inspection by the public, except for information specifically exempted from disclosure by law. The statute is modeled after the federal Freedom of Information Act and serves a similar purpose as freedom of information legislation in the other U.S. states.
Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) is a nonprofit and nonpartisan data gathering, data research, and data distribution organization in the S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University.
News Leaders Association (NLA) is a non-profit organization that focuses on training and supporting journalists. Formerly the American Society of News Editors and Associated Press Media Editors, the organizations merged in 2019 to form NLA.