An often quoted phrase related to open government is one by Louis Brandeis, an attorney and associate justice on the Supreme Court whose work and writings spanned the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
“Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric lights the most efficient policemen,” Brandeis wrote in a Harper’s Weekly article in 1913, one of his many writings on the topic.
Brandeis (1856-1941) believed that “sunlight” on government activities could expose wrongdoing, corruption and inefficiency. It could bring cronyism to light and equip citizens to fight against misgovernment and thereby, protect their liberty.
The issues were concrete for Brandeis, whose focus at hand was corruption in Boston and in Massachusetts in general, particularly by public officers who were obtaining contracts to enrich themselves or their friends.
He believed that newspapers of the day should use their power of publicity to expose the inner workings of government, particularly such actions that, if revealed, would expose wrongdoers who were trying to pass themselves off as “honest men.”