Hope should be gaining momentum for people who demand to know the truth because now there is proof that plenty of people feel the same way.

Sunshine Week is coming up in mid-March and will be celebrating its first birthday. The idea behind the week is to attack government secrecy from the municipal level all the way to the Oval Office.

It was started by members of the media, but has recruited students in the last year.

Government on every level seemingly stands behind tinted glass making sure we cannot see inside.

One fear is that the general public cannot handle the knowledge that a government possesses. Some politicians think that enough of the public would initially overreact and this would become a problem. This problem could materialize by way of a recall.

Also, if significant information were released to the general public, then our greatest enemies would be aware of that same information.

“Enemy” could mean the other political party or more obviously anyone related to terrorism.

The other fear is that the government is not acting like a representative of its people. Dark and mysterious things are happening behind the bland and repetitive quotes.

We know that politicians lie to us, but we seem to accept it as the norm. We make jokes about it and pretend things will never change.

Conspiracy theorists stay up late into the evening hours, blogging on the latest speculation. The only purpose is seemingly to ease the pain of feeling like a fool.

We have the Freedom of Information Act, but it is about a half-century old. The documents found online are laughable. Page after page is unreadable, unless you are proficient in the language of horizontal blackout lines.

Sunshine Week can begin to change our reality. Hope should be gaining momentum for people who demand to know the truth because now there is proof that plenty of people feel the same way.

As students we should join the movement because it can create energy and a new feeling about government. We, the United States, will never get to where we could be if we are not open and honest about who we are and what we want. It has to start with our leaders and representatives sharing information.

Almost everyone would say right now that some level of government leadership has been dishonest. Usually people are only dishonest to hide some unhappy truth or wrongdoing. It stands to reason the government has some bad news. We must understand that the world is not a happy place and that government is the stickiest of businesses.

The governments and the citizens of our nation must both begin to inch toward each other because it took many years to get to this point and change is never easy. But both sides have to speak to form an exchange.

Sunshine Week is a loud statement. What will the government have to say in return?

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