# Government in the Sunshine Act > [!note] Stub > This is a short entry that hasn't been fully written yet. The **Government in the Sunshine Act**, enacted in 1976 and codified at 5 U.S.C. § 552b, requires that meetings of multi-headed federal agencies — commissions, boards and similar collegial bodies — be open to public observation, with advance notice published and a record kept. Its lasting significance is as much the exceptions as the rule. Section 552b(c) lists ten grounds on which a meeting may lawfully be closed, covering classified information, internal personnel rules, trade secrets, personal privacy, law enforcement records, bank examination material, and information whose premature disclosure would frustrate a proposed agency action, among others. Closing a meeting requires a recorded vote and, in most frameworks, a written determination. **Why it matters.** Those ten exemptions do work far beyond the agencies the Act was written for, because other transparency regimes borrow them wholesale. A federal advisory committee's meeting is closed on the Sunshine Act's grounds plus a written determination by the agency head — so the question of whether outside advice is given in public is answered, in practice, by a list drafted in 1976 for a different purpose. ## See also - [[Federal Advisory Committee Structure Tree]] — where these exemptions are borrowed to close an advisory committee's meetings - [[Federal Advisory Committee Act]] — the open-meeting requirement these exemptions qualify - [[Freedom of Information Act]] — the records counterpart, with a parallel exemption list - [[Administrative Procedure Act]] · [[Policy Hub]]