Democracy cannot flourish when government operates in the shadows.

A more open government isn't the solution to all the problems at the local, state and national levels. But it's indisputable that a lot of the nonsense that goes on would disappear or be promptly corrected if it was subject to public scrutiny.

The more the public knows – or can know as a result of disclosure requirements – the fewer fast ones government officials will try to pull.

That's why each year at this time the nation's newspapers celebrate National Sunshine Week. Spearheaded by the American Society of News Editors, Sunshine Week is about taxpayers' right to find out what the government they fund is doing.

The idea of transparency in government would seem to be one of those touchy-feely notions. After all, in a democratic society, who would oppose the idea of open government?

Don't kid yourself. Despite lip service to the contrary, there is considerable opposition to open government from people who run government at all levels. They complain that it's costly, time-consuming, burdensome and mostly unnecessary.

But what they really are concerned about – not publicly, but privately – is being held accountable by an informed public.

In others words, their position is that what the public doesn't know can't hurt them.

Some might think that an unduly cynical view of public service. Actually, it reflects a crystal-clear understanding of human nature. Everyone, no matter what their station in life, wants to get through the day with minimal obstacles.

But that attitude, writ large in government at all levels, could wreak havoc on the concept of an informed public if the people who run government were allowed to decide to whom and how much information they would release.

Consider, for example, legislation recently proposed in Springfield that would spare governmental bodies the requirement of having to publish official notices in their local newspapers. The legislator who introduced the bill, state Rep. Frank Mautino, a Democrat from Spring Valley, said he filed the legislation in response to local government officials complaints about the cost of the notices.

Mautino's solution is to allow these local entities to meet the publication requirements by posting notices on their own Internet sites.

Even as Mautino seeks to withhold information from the public, he claims he's not trying to withhold information from the public. But Illinois has thousands of local units of government – everything from park and school districts to townships and city councils.

Requiring citizens to search all these Internet sites for public notices would, at a minimum, be incredibly difficult. It certainly would be far more time-consuming than it is to open a copy of the newspaper and read a notice from a local community college district or the county forest preserve.

And here's another foolish idea, this one from the Illinois Municipal League, the most vehement opponent of full disclosure in Illinois.

The municipal league has proposed legislation that would limit the number of freedom of information requests an individual could submit to a governmental body during a 12-month period. The municipal league wants the right to interpret certain requests as "vexatious," meaning harassing, and not just limit the numbers of FOIA requests that can be filed but also expand the time in which it has to respond from five days to 21 days.

FOIA requests are normally associated with news organizations. But a huge number of requests are submitted each year by private individuals.

Certainly, the news media act as the public's representatives in a wide variety of governmental issues. But the right to know what government is doing is the public's right. After all, government is supposed to serve the public, not the other way around.

Unfortunately, the fight over government transparency is never-ending. A couple of years ago, state legislators passed a much-improved freedom of information law. It had not taken effect before FOIA foes began their efforts to rewrite and gut it, and they have succeeded to some extent.

Sunshine, meaning public scrutiny, is the best disinfectant. We need more, not less. That's what Sunshine Week is about, strengthening democracy by ensuring an informed public that will hold government accountable and help keep it in line.