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Palm Beach Daily News Cleansing rays: Government works best in sunshine If you have ever looked up a property record, checked precinct voting results after an election or attended a public meeting, you have enjoyed the national right to freedom of information. Even reading this newspaper is an exercise in one of the fundamental principles of the American democracy. Today is Sunshine Sunday, the start of a week during which newspapers, magazines, television and radio outlets across the nation will be explaining the importance of freedom of information and celebrating its use by individuals and groups. And learning about and using your rights to easy access to all kinds of public information are the most powerful ways to protect, strengthen and expand those rights. When citizens know what informs the decision-making of their leadership, they have the power to influence those decisions. Recent corruption scandals in Palm Beach County and West Palm Beach are clear evidence of the fundamental need to know how public business in conducted. Florida Government-in-the-Sunshine legislation is well-established, but there is increasing pressure to limit its safeguards, as there is on the federal Freedom of Information Act. But every citizen has the right to information that ranges from the highest levels of international relations to state, county and local decisions. Freedom of information is the muscle, the strength, the conscience that keeps government a servant of the people and not their master. Reproduced courtesy of the Palm Beach Daily News. |