Paying for its secrecy

The federal government is finding that its secrecy is costly, in a great victory for a newspaper in an open records case.

The feds are paying $105,000 in attorney fees for a Florida paper that successfully sued the Department of Homeland Security for public records.

This is great news and let's hope it sends a strong signal to government agencies, from the feds on down, that secrecy doesn't pay.

In this case, U.S. taxpayers are footing the bill for the Department of Homeland Security's secrecy. I'm sure you're about as happy about that as I am.