You don't see people marching in the streets waving signs and chanting "Government Transparency Now!" Peaceniks, abortion activists and animal rights advocates seem to have cornered the protest market.

But Maryland could use a few more radicals for transparency - a necessity for good government, and as we've seen at the national level, stable financial markets. A just released Sunshine Week 2009 Survey of State Government Information ranks Maryland in the top half of the 50 states for providing free access to state information online. Texas was first. But that only tells part of the story.

State government records are important and Gov. Martin O'Malley and state legislators should be commended for putting spending online in an easily searchable database at http://spending.dbm.maryland.gov.

But easy access to local government information is just as vital. And as a Maryland Public Policy Institute (MPPI) report from January shows, many counties and their school systems fail to provide accessible and searchable information on contracts and guidelines for applying for them, and lobbying and ethics reports.

This is not a question of money, as many officials claim. Anyone with a scanner and basic Microsoft Office software can upload information online. Searchable databases of county spending may take longer and cost more money, but since the state created one, and Howard County is in the process of doing so, no county would have to start from scratch.

We can not afford to wait - especially with millions flooding to cities and counties throughout the state because of the federal stimulus bill. Waste and fraud will happen - the only question is how much. The MPPI report shows why.

Montgomery and Prince George's Counties, for example, provide no information on current contracts, previous bids, previous awardees, nor vendor lists. From personal experience, I know that if you want any information on Baltimore City contracts, you must go in person to the city armed with both a date the contract was approved by the Board of Estimates and the name of the company.

So unless you are an insider, or have hours of free time to research meeting minutes, forget about discovering who does business with the city and for how much. That ensures taxpayers will pay more for goods and services and benefits only an elite group of businesses with close ties to those in power.

Public school systems throughout the state, with the exception of Anne Arundel and Baltimore County, also do a poor job of listing contracts and information related to bidding for them. And only Montgomery County provides residents with a list of school system vendors. And virtually every county except for Anne Arundel and Montgomery hide information about lobbying, campaign finance and ethics reports.

That is a situation ripe for fraud - as Baltimore City Mayor Sheila Dixon's current legal problems make clear. She faces a 12-count indictment for theft and fraud in part related to taking gifts and not disclosing them from a former boyfriend, Ronald Lipscomb, a developer with city contracts.

The fact that members of the Baltimore City Council did not immediately move to create an online database of contracts and spending following the mayor's indictment shows they do not really care about holding themselves accountable.

So does recent news, first reported by Investigative Voice, that nearly 200 former Baltimore City employees improperly received full pension benefits despite retiring too soon to earn them, including former Deputy Police Commissioner Marcus Brown, now head of the Maryland Transportation Authority Police.

If that information had been online, it would have made it much more difficult for those abusing their power and relationships to defraud taxpayers.

And the state could still do better. It refuses to list individually the cost of pensions and health care for current and former state employees - a huge reason taxpayers around the nation will face higher taxes in coming years.

We've seen where trusting the government to do the right thing leaves taxpayers at both the state and federal level. To foster trust in our elected and appointed officials and ensure tax dollars are being used wisely around the state, we must demand the tools to do so in every county and in Baltimore City.

Otherwise we should hit the streets. We must not let silence act as an accomplice to those who seek to keep Marylanders in the dark.

Examiner columnist Marta H. Mossburg is a senior fellow at the Maryland Public Policy Institute.