From the New York Times:

Lawyers for the city, responding to a request to unseal records of police surveillance leading up to the 2004 Republican convention in New York, say that the documents should remain secret because the news media will “fixate upon and sensationalize them,” hurting the city’s ability to defend itself in lawsuits over mass arrests.

Yeah, well; the City could have considered that before spying on a Martin Luther King Rally endorsed by sitting members of the City Council. One would think this would have been obvious at the time.

It gets better.

In papers filed in federal court last week, the city’s lawyers also say that the documents could be “misinterpreted” because they were not intended for the public.

“The documents were not written for consumption by the general public,” wrote Peter Farrell, senior counsel in the city’s Law Department. “The documents contain information filtered and distilled for analysis by intelligence officers accustomed to reading intelligence information.”

That's right. You, John and Jane Q. Public, are unqualified to understand what it means when the NYPD spies on your free speech.

Somehow, I don't think that particular argument is going anywhere. Arguments that start out with the assumption that the public is stupid seldom do.