Because the public access policy of the NHTSA certainly appears to be implementing what Orwell warned against.

Under the new access policy, no one is allowed to speak for attribution to the press under almost any circumstances. They have to get advance permission for the most routine things. This means that the press office cannot tell a member of the press who the director of the HTTSA is:

If you want to know something as simple as who heads the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, don’t bother to ask the safety agency’s communications office. Without special permission, officials there are no longer allowed to provide information to reporters except on a background basis, which means it cannot be attributed to a spokesman.

Without such attribution, there are few circumstances under which most reporters will report such information. This makes for interesting dealings with the office charged with providing information about the nation’s top automotive safety agency.

So, I will end the suspense about the boss’s identity. The administrator is Nicole R. Nason, who took over on May 31, 2006, after she was appointed to the post by President Bush.

And it is she who put the big hush on one of the government’s most important safety agencies.

…

H/t to the Carpetbagger Report