About National Freedom of Information Day
Observed during Sunshine Week – so named for journalists in Florida, the Sunshine State, trying to prevent legislators from making public records more difficult to request – this is a day for the public and journalists to discuss their rights to public records.
Sunshine Week is in March to coincide with the birthday of President James Madison, an advocate for open government records.
From The American Presidency Project, Proclamation 5447—Freedom of Information Day, 1986, “March 16 is the anniversary of the birth of James Madison, our fourth President and one of the principal figures in the Constitutional Convention. Madison eloquently expressed the guarantees in the Bill of Rights, in particular in the freedoms of religion, speech, and of the press protected by the First Amendment. He understood the value of information in a democratic society, as well as the importance of its free and open dissemination. He believed that through the interaction of the Government and its citizens, facilitated by a free press and open access to information, the Government could be most responsive to the people it serves. Surely the American experience has proved him right.
“This year [1986] marks the twentieth anniversary of the enactment by the Federal government of the Freedom of Information Act [1966]. On President Madison's birthday, it is particularly fitting that we recognize the value of reasonable access to information in our political process.” - Ronald Reagan, President of the United States of America
