This is National Sunshine Week, a time for us all to take a moment to remember how important freedom of information is to the operation of our democracy.

And this year on National Sunshine Week, let's all take a moment to also give thanks that we don't live in Utah.

In the past few weeks, the Utah state legislature has effectively rolled back decades of progress on open government there. 

The situation in Utah is the topic of this week's episode of our podcast on open government, Transparency Talk. Discussing the changes in Utah is Prof. Charles Davis of the University of Missouri, one of the nation's leading freedom of information advocates and former head of the National Freedom of Information Coalition. 

Davis tells me that the bill that passed in Utah is the worst piece of open government legislation he'd seen in the 25 years he'd been studying the issue. Ouch! 

You can listen to the podcast directly through the player embedded on this page, or download the audio to your iPod to listen on the go. (And be sure to become a fan of the Transparency Talk Facebook page to keep up with all of our episodes and send us ideas and feedback.)

National Sunshine Week will also be the topic of this week's #FOIAchat on Twitter, starting at 2 p.m. Eastern/1 p.m. Central Friday. We hope to see you there. 

Contact Jennifer Peebles at jennifer@texaswatchdog.org, or on Twitter at @jpeebles or @texaswatchdog. Or call her via Google Voice or Skype using the widgets at the bottom of this page. 

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