Every day it's another story about another thing our government wants to be secretive about.

The Obama administration has asked a federal judge to hold a highly anticipated court hearing on its painful force-feedings of Guantanamo Bay detainees almost entirely in secret, prompting suspicions of a cover-up.

Justice Department attorneys argued to district judge Gladys Kessler that allowing the hearings to be open to the public would jeopardize national security through the disclosure of classified information. Should Kessler agree, the first major legal battle over forced feeding in a federal court would be less transparent than the military commissions at Guantanamo Bay.

Attorneys for Abu Wa'el Dhiab, a Syrian detainee on hunger strike whose court challenge is slated to begin next week, said the government was using national security as an excuse to prevent the public from learning the extent of a practice that the judge in the case has considered brutal.

They also sealed the videotapes of the force-feedings. Other than covering up prisoner abuse, i'm not sure what issues of national security could come up in a case about breaking a hunger strike. Did they call in undercover agents to perform the force-feedings? Are they wearing shirts embroidered with their passwords?

And this was supposed to be the less conservative (batshit crazy) administration.