While most of the country spends this week knee-deep in bracketology and corned beef, government professionals and the watchdogs who love to uh, watch, them, mark the third week of March as that most American of pseudo-holidays. That's right kids, we're talkin' Sunshine Week!

For those not in the know (i.e. anyone who doesn't consider Jay Carney an A-List celebrity), Sunshine Week is an annual event founded by the American Society of News Editors and funded largely by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. According to Sunshine Week's official website, the initiative "seeks to enlighten and empower people to play an active role in their government at all levels, and to give them access to information that makes their lives better and their communities stronger."

While Sunshine Week has only been in existence since 2006, it has seemed to increased public awareness about the need for increased government transparency at every level. But according to a recent report it seems that some corners of the federal government have been seriously lagging behind in the area of responding to Freedom of Information requests, perhaps the best barometer of a government agency's transparency.

According to the Knight Foundation, only about 49 of 90 federal agencies respond to Freedom of Information Act requests in a timely and sufficient manner. These findings come two full years after, on his first full day in office in January 2009, President Obama issued a memorandum calling for "a new era of open government." Of course 49 out of 90 doesn't seem so bad when one considers the same study's findings one year ago...when a whopping 13 out of 90 agencies were found to have made "concrete changes" to their FOIA procedure.

"At this rate, the president's first term in office may be over by the time federal agencies do what he asked them to do on his first day in office," said Eric Newton, senior adviser to the president at the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, in a press release accompanying the report.

Federal law requires FOIA requests be answered within 20 days of being filed. The Knight study revealed 18 different federal agencies that had yet to respond to FOIA requests up to 117 days after they had been originally filed.

Of course, there are several factors that must be taken into account when looking at what agencies seem to be lacking. But when agencies as vital as the State Department and the Department of Education are found to be lagging in their response to public information requests, there is a major problem afoot. After all, the State Department is not exactly a severely understaffed agency operating a shoestring budget.

While the criticisms are legitimate, we would be remiss not to acknowledge that serious progress has been made. Jumping from 13 compliant agencies to 49 in the span of one year is an accomplishment that should be applauded. But over two years after Obama's call for transparency, it is past time that some agencies take a little word of advice the cast of everyone's favorite naked hippie musical Hair and "let the sunshine in."