Sunday marked the beginning of Sunshine Week, an annual observance meant to raise public awareness of the need for a more open government.

Sunshine Week began in 2002 in Florida as an effort by newspapers to oppose attempts by state lawmakers to push through hundreds of exemptions to the states public records law. The Florida Society of Newspaper Editors estimates the first Sunshine Week initiative was directly responsible for blocking at least 300 such exemptions.

Sunshine Week is now led by the American Society of Newspaper Editors. Participants include newspapers including the Texarkana Gazette as well as other print and broadcast media, libraries, schools and civic and other groups, conservative, liberal and in-between, committed to the publics right to know as much as possible about what their government is doing.

An informed public is a powerful public. The more a government must disclose, the more accountable and responsible that government must be.

Without free access to government information important questions cant be raised and important answers demanded. An open government is the difference between democracy and tyranny.

Sunshine Week is needed now more than ever.

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S., our government has steadily become more secret, and much more arbitrary in what it regards as sensitive material. More federal records are being classified secret or higher than ever before in our countrys history.

This is not just national security information, either. Much of what is being kept under lock and key now is basic information journalists and public watchdog groups have used for years to root out government waste and fraud.

A February study by the Coalition of Journalists for Open Government reports response times for requests under the Freedom of Information Act are longer and more requests are being denied.

There are valid reasons for keeping some information out of the public eye. But while there are certain things that must be kept secret for the security of our nation, the standards for such secrecy should not be arbitrary but carefully detailed and kept within proper limits.

And the laws that protect sensitive intelligence information should not be manipulated by the government to keep the pesky public from prying too closely into what its elected leaders and rank-and-file bureaucrats are up to.

These people work for us. We have a right to make sure what they are doing is in the best interest of our country.

But we cant do that if we allow them to operate without proper accountability.