Each year, on the anniversary of James Madison’s birth, we celebrate Sunshine Week, a national observance of the importance of open government and freedom of information. James Madison, author of the Bill of Rights and our fourth President, stressed the importance of citizen access to information, saying:
A popular government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to farce or a tragedy.
From Revolutionary-era pamphleteers to the Internet Age and the proliferation of online news sites, discussion forums and blogs, our society has cherished free, vigorous and informed political discourse. However, our First Amendment rights of Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Petition and 
Freedom of the Press are rendered weak and ineffectual without government transparency and freedom of information. Without access to the proceedings of government bodies, and the documents and data that they use to inform their decision making, our evaluation of the performance of our elected representatives will be superficial and uninformed.
We are fortunate in Massachusetts to have a strong legal mandate for government transparency in the form of the Public Records Law and the Open Meeting Law. Although these laws are especially important for the free press, since it guarantees their ability to investigate and report on government activities, these two laws make government information accessible to all citizens.
The Public Records Law allows anyone to request records from any state or local board, committee, agency or other government entity. With some exceptions specifically enumerated by state law, anyone can request, inspect and copy any governments documents, printed or electronic, for a nominal retrieval and copying fee.
The Open Meeting Law ensures that anyone can attend a meeting of a government body:
All meetings of a governmental body shall be open to the public and any person shall be permitted to attend any meeting except as otherwise provided by this section.
The Open Meeting Law also requires that meetings be publicly announced at least 48-hours in advance and that accurate records of the meeting be recorded. These records are then available for inspection according to the Public Records Law.
More information on these two laws can be found among the “Open Government” links to your right.
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