The Obama administration asked the Supreme Court Friday to allow the government to seek nearly $300 billion from the tobacco industry for a half-century of deception that "has cost the lives and damaged the health of untold millions of Americans."…Leading tobacco companies…want the justices to wipe away court holdings that the industry illegally concealed the dangers of cigarette smoking…Philip Morris USA, the nation's largest tobacco maker, its parent company Altria Group Inc., R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., British American Tobacco Investments Ltd. and Lorillard Tobacco Co. filed separate but related appeals that take issue with a federal judge's…opinion and an appeals court ruling that found the industry engaged in racketeering and fraud over several decades.