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The Best Case Yet For Government Secrecy

From an AP story on a FOIA request for records related to Dick Cheney's interview with FBI during the Valerie Plame leak investigation:

Justice Department lawyers told the judge that future presidents and vice presidents may not cooperate with criminal investigations if they know what they say could become available to their political opponents and late-night comics who would ridicule them.

"If we become a fact-finder for political enemies, they aren't going to cooperate," Justice Department attorney Jeffrey Smith said during a 90-minute hearing. "I don't want a future vice president to say, `I'm not going to cooperate with you because I don't want to be fodder for 'The Daily Show.'"

Ah, for the days when we kept things secret so that they wouldn't be used against us by foreign adversaries...

(via Jason Linkins)

--Christopher Orr