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Government in the sunshine is a political term that refers to an open government whose records are accessible to the public. Prior to the second world war most governments, even in democratic countries, were very secretive with what sorts of documents they allowed to enter the public domain. Often, documents and records were released on the so-called "need to know" basis, in which only information that the public needed to know was released. Of course this was a very subjective standard, and more often than not information which was potentially embarrassing for the government was not released to the public, for fear of criticism or outrage.
Today, most democratic countries have implemented so-called sunshine laws, in which most government files, records, and documents are accessible by the public, with only minor regulations.
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