Why is the Bush administration secretive? If you think it’s for reasons of national security, you guessed wrong.

Here’s one piece of the puzzle, courtesy of the New York Times:

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.

NHTSA is the best resource out there on automobile safety. To close that resource — except on a megalomaniacal quest to control the information — can only place Americans in danger. The only group this protects is auto manufacturers, who are more concerned about selling cars than selling safe cars. Remember: this is the same group that insisted that seatbelt and airbag requirements would make cars too unaffordable to too many consumers.

There is clearly no intention here to protect American lives. Should the Bush administration have any concern for actual human life, they would let the sunshine in.