The 2025 Sunshine Week conference held March 20 highlighted new obstacles to holding government agencies accountable. Freelance journalist and soon to be Georgetown University student, James Mae attended the conference and reports for us.
On March 20, over a hundred state and federal government employees, academics, non-profit leaders, tech industry heads, and journalists descended on Washington D.C. to discuss the state of Freedom of Information Act laws and the current challenges surrounding government transparency in the U.S. and abroad.
Sunshine Week, hosted by the Joseph L. Brechner Freedom of Information Project at the University of Florida, is a nonpartisan effort between journalism, civil service, and government organizations to advocate for open records and government transparency. This year’s Sunshine Fest was the first-ever in-person Sunshine Week conference.
While experts presented various topics, the conversation focused overwhelmingly on President Donald Trump and his executive actions, which have caused backlogs and delays in the federal records request process and disruptions in government transparency here and abroad.
Daniel Schuman, executive director of the non-profit American Governance Institute, discussed how Trump’s firing of FOIA officers, Inspectors General, and the director of the National Archives has exacerbated the backlog of requests and is causing significant time delays in federal records requests.
Federal agencies still must keep, maintain, and provide public records when requested, even if they do not have the proper staff or funds to keep up with the work.
One solution offered to address backlogged records is AI. Lawyers on the AI and FOIA panel suggested that instead of keyword searching, agencies should use AI to sort through records and use programming to streamline the process of fulfilling records requests.
Writer Alex Howard, who spoke on the “FOIA and AI” panel, argued that while AI can be a great tool in the FOIA process, humans still need to be involved to ensure that requests are properly processed.
“There’s no question that there is tremendous potential with AI. [However] It is simply not credible to imagine [the] automation all aspects of a profoundly human process,” Howard said.
During the conference, former journalist Irvin McCullough introduced the new program he co-founded, FOIA Friend. The app uses AI to help requesters write and file record requests. It aims to streamline and speed up the records-requesting process by helping create more targeted requests.
AI was not the only proposed solution to address the backlog and inefficiencies in the federal FOIA process.
Other experts, like Megan Rhyne of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government Solutions, proposed that state records could be used in lieu of some federal records and that government agencies could proactively disclose commonly requested materials.
While state records can be easier to obtain than federal records, panelists still acknowledge that high fees and the politicization of transparency can complicate state FOIA processes.
Beyond the challenges in the U.S., Schuman and Toby Mendel, directors of the Canadian non-profit Centre for Law and Democracy, discussed how the Trump administration’s policies would create a ripple effect around the globe.
Schuman discussed how cuts to USAID, which gutted government transparency agencies abroad, will make it more difficult for foreign civil service and journalism organizations to hold their governments accountable.
In the first couple of months of his second term, the Trump administration rolled back commitments to the Open Government Partnership, an international government transparency agency, purged public data, and interfered with a free press by blocking AP due to its editorial judgments, ordering investigations into public media, and dismantling the VOA.
On Friday, March 21, AGI, along with 11 civil service groups, called upon the Open Government Partnership, an international organization that advocates for nations to adopt open government politics, to place the U.S. under “immediate review” for violations of its open government commitments and threats to the free press.
Kathleen Minor, Gillian Henneberry, and Abby Rillo wrote summaries of the sessions, which can be seen here. You can also learn more about the Sunshine effort on the Sunshine Week website.
The 2026 Sunshine Week will take place March 15-26. Stay tuned.