Sunshine Week events
The 2008 conference, “Toward a More Open Government: Opportunities &
Obstacles,” was held on Friday, March 14, in the Freedom Forum’s Newseum,
located at 555 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., in the nation’s capital. (The Newseum
will formally open April 11.)
Ronald
Collins
The 10th annual conference, hosted by the First Amendment Center, included
noted keynote speakers; more than a dozen national experts discussing new
amendments to the federal Freedom of Information Act and access to critical
infrastructure information; and presentation of the American Library
Association’s annual James Madison awards.
“In these times of unparalleled secrecy, the ideal of open government is
under siege. Hence, the need for a collaborative effort to correct this
political malady is great,” said conference host and organizer Ronald Collins of the First Amendment
Center. “We are therefore proud to make our contribution to Sunshine Week and to
do what we can to further the idea that open government is the best government,
the fairest government and the government most likely to honor the right of the
people to self-rule.”
The FOI Day Conference, which brought together access advocates, government
officials, lawyers, librarians, journalists, educators and others, was
co-sponsored by Sunshine Week and held
in cooperation with the American Library
Association, OpenTheGovernment.org, the Coalition of Journalists for Open Government and
the Sunshine in Government
Initiative.
“One of the most notable aspects of the program Ron Collins assembled this
year was that it was able to attract, in near equal numbers, attendees both from
the FOI community making requests and from those offices in government agencies
responsible for handling those FOI requests,” said Gene Policinski, vice president and
executive director of the First Amendment Center. “It’s the exchange of views,
from all sides, that makes FOI Day special, year after year.”
2008 program agenda
Remarks
Conference speakers’
bios
Conference coverage
For information from previous National FOI Day programs, see cases
& resources.
FOI Day history
The idea of a National FOI Day to be observed on March 16 in honor of James
Madison’s birthday emerged in the late 1970s. For a number of years, the
National Press Club hosted a FOI program on different dates, but that program
became subsumed by other interests in the early 1990s.
In 1993, Paul McMasters convened a “National Freedom of Information Summit”
at the First Amendment Center in Nashville, bringing together most of the major
players on FOI, right to know and government secrecy. That two-day conference
resulted in a report titled “Battling for an Open Government.”
In 1996, working with the American Society of Newspaper Editors, McMasters
convened another summit at the Freedom Forum on FOIA’s 30th anniversary called
“Sunshine & Secrecy: The FOIA Turns 30.”
The first official National FOI Day conference was held at the Freedom Forum
on March 16, 1999, and has continued ever since.
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