Sunshine Week at BxNN: Your Right to Know

The Bronx News Network is a proud supporter and participant in Sunshine Week, an initiative started by journalists that seeks to shed light -- sun light, if you will -- on the importance of open government and freedom of information.

Here's the official tagline: "Sunshine Week seeks to enlighten and empower people to play an active role in their government at all levels, and to give them access to information that makes their lives better and their communities stronger."

In other words, open government equals more accountable government and a more-informed public citizenry.

As journalists, it is our goal to shed light on how the government works (or isn't working) for our communities. Oftentimes, as you might imagine, we run into resistance while working on this quest. Some agencies and elected officials are better than others. Many agencies put loads of information on their websites. But many remain stubborn oysters, reluctant to open up without some significant prying. This is a problem. How can we hold government accountable, if we don't even know what it's doing?

There are ways to finesse this problem and the best journalists acquire the necessary information through various tricks of the trade. The law is also on our side. And when I say "our," I mean journalists as well as the general public. Generally speaking, you have a right to know what the government you pay for (with taxes) is up to. New York State actually has a pretty robust Freedom of Information Law (FOIL), although it doesn't work 100 percent of the time.

Robert Freeman heads the state's Committee on Open Government. I'll let him explain our rights:


Check out the committee's official website for information. We'll post more videos from Freeman throughout the week.

We will also recount and examine some of our hardest cases, our most stubborn oysters. Here's a quick story to start off the conversation.

Freedom of Information Push

This might seem like journalistic inside baseball, but it's not. The state Freedom of Information Law applies to everyone. Anyone can file a FOIL request, seeking access to government documents, meeting minutes, etc. if it is not forthcoming from the public agency in question. The state Committee on Open Government, created by the FOIL, reports that its Web site is experiencing a incredible surge in traffic and is calling on the state legislature to strengthen the law with the following provisions:

* Authorize courts to invalidate actions by boards when it is proven that the actions occurred in secret and in violation of Open Meetings Law.

* Require award of attorney's fees when it is proven in court that votes happened illegally.

* Require that government meeting notices be listed online.

* Require that more records be posted online.

The second one is particularly critical because when agencies illegally reject requests or stonewall, the burden is on the person requesting the information to come up with the money to hire a lawyer.

An Assembly committee should be hearing the Committee on Open Government's recommendations soon.

Thanks to Liz Benjamin at the Daily News for the heads up.