A political appointee over at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which does the laudable work of researching ways to keep Americans from getting killed in their cars, seems to have set a new standard for shutting out the public.

According to The New York Times' "Wheels" blog, NHTSA administrator Nicole R. Nason has muzzled an entire agency. According to blogger Christopher Jensen, "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." Under the rules of most news organizations, that makes the information useless.

The information can be put on the record later, but only, it seems, after clearance with the public-relations staff at NHTSA.

This is not the CIA or the Pentagon or the Justice Department, where information may have sensitive nuances. This is an agency that deals with automotive safety, for crying out loud.

The explanations for the new secrecy given to Jensen make no sense except in the context of political appointees anxious that the agency stay "on message."

The people behind the clumsy attempt at image control probably didn't think of it this way, but the taxpayers who pay for NHTSA to gather data and also pay for the experts to analyze it deserve unfettered access to both.