July 4 is a day for reflection (and unsettling late night window rattling explosions).

Most Kentuckians are grateful that we have what we perceive to be a strong open records law.

This is not a view held nationwide. In a recent survey conducted by the University of Arizona, Kentucky ranked 32nd in open records compliance.

Even its staunchest advocates recognize its weaknesses and the threats it currently faces.

Today's posts will reaffirm the importance of our open government laws — and the need to preserve them in the face of legislative attacks and agency obstruction — by underscoring the threats to other states' laws.

This editorial — which appeared in the Atlanta Journal Constitution in March 2018 — focuses on a criminal investigation into corruption at Atlanta City Hall by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and how two AJC reporters played a role in exposing that corruption.

It is reminiscent of Woodward and Bernstein but at the local level.

Georgia's public records law played a critical role in shining the light on official misconduct at the highest levels of city government.

Kentucky's law has done, and will continue to do, the same. But we must fight to preserve it and to hold public agencies and officials to the highest standards of accountability.

The editorial concludes:

"Public records are public because they belong to you — you and other taxpayers paid to create them and, of course, you paid for all the work they record and represent. So no one should be looking for ways to keep them secret from you."

Well said.