When the first South Carolina Freedom of Information Act was introduced in the House of Representatives in 1971, the bill stated that "The General Assembly finds that it is vital in a democratic society that public business be performed in an open and public manner….” The purpose of this openness is to allow citizens to “be advised of the performance of public officials… the decisions…reached and…the formulation of public policy.”

These findings make sense. The promise of democracy is hollow if the people are precluded from learning of governmental activity, and it is clear in the very first provision of the South Carolina Constitution that the political power of the state resides in the people.

Yet, as we observe National Sunshine Week and the principle of “government in the sunshine,” we are daily confronted by those who have been elected or employed to operate our government for us, who disregard the mandate of the law in order to hide their activities from the public.

The Supreme Court of South Carolina, addressing a claim by a former Horry County administrator, that the press and public could be liable for money damages for their complaints regarding the administrator’s job performance, made it clear that citizens are not “third party interlopers” when they seek to hold officials accountable. It is our government and we are effective participants only when we can look over the shoulders of those in our employ — whether they be elected or hired.

EMS technicians want to remain anonymous so that the public cannot evaluate their performance, and DHEC off ered legislation embracing this secrecy. There is an outbreak of an intestinal disease in South Carolina, but DHEC refuses to identify the locations of disease clusters.

DHEC is far from the only agency seeking to shelter government information from its citizen “employers.” School districts hire lawyers to conduct the annual evaluation of the superintendent by interviewing school board members, and then, claiming that the individual interviews are confidential attorney–client communications, keep the public from learning how individual board members assessed the performance of the superintendent. Anderson County's former administrator refused to let a member of county council see county financial records until the information was stale.

The Department of Public Safety says that records are closed because an investigation is pending even though the Supreme Court of South Carolina ruled in a case involving the North Charleston Police Department that such a claim was insuffi cient to deny public access to the records.

A parent offered to videotape school board meetings so the meetings could be made available on the school district's Website, but the district didn’t want the scrutiny. That should be no surprise because this is the same school district that sued this parent to prevent her from recording the meetings of a committee of which she was a member even though the law says clearly that meetings may be recorded.

The law requires that information collected in a search to fill a public position be made available to the public with respect to “not fewer than the final three applicants under consideration for a position.” Francis Marion University hired a president and refused to release any material claiming that there had been no “applicants” for the position. A Spartanburg school district released information only with regard to two applicants claiming that those two were there only “fi nalists.” Only a school district with legal help could conclude that two satisfies a statutory requirement of not fewer than three. And, the word “finalist” does not appear in the statute.

Speaking of not appearing in the language of the law, city and county councils, school boards and other public bodies routinely go into closed session stating as the reason “personnel matters” or “contractual matters” even though those terms do not appear in the law and the Attorney General has issued numerous opinions objecting to the practice.

Newspapers were instrumental in obtaining passage of the South Carolina Freedom of Information Act in 1972 and the adoption of amendments strengthening the law since.

Newspapers have committed significant resources to mount challenges to government secrecy both in the courts and in the pages of the papers.

Editors and publishers in these trying economic straits ask regularly if they can any longer afford these battles. And what if newspapers no longer champion open government?

We will not have government in the sunshine. In fact, we won’t have government by the light of a single cell flashlight. And then, what will our democracy look like? Is it too harsh for your taste for me to say that cockroaches and corrupt government thrive in the dark?

Should you care about government in the sunshine? Only if you believe in democracy.

Jay Bender is the holder of the Reid H. Montgomery Chair in the School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of South Carolina and the attorney for the S.C. Press Association.