Via Politico:

David Sanger, the New York Times reporter who has spent two decades reporting in Washington, says that the Obama administration is the “most closed, control-freak administration” he’s ever covered.

That criticism comes from a forthcoming report on U.S. press freedom written by former Washington Post editor Leonard Downie, Jr., in which he claims that national security reporters face “vast and unprecedented challenges” as a result of government surveillance, secrecy and “sophisticated control” of the news media’s access to government.

In that report, which Downie previewed in a Post article on Friday, Sanger says that White House employees and intelligence agency staff were specifically told in 2012 to freeze and retain any correspondence they’d had with him. That directive came after Sanger published a 2012 story about U.S. and Israeli cyberattacks against Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities.”

“A memo went out from the chief of staff a year ago to White House employees and the intelligence agencies that told people to freeze and retain any e-mail, and presumably phone logs, of communications with me,” Sanger told Downie. Now his sources tell him, “‘David, I love you, but don’t e-mail me. Let’s don’t chat until this blows over.’ ”

“This is most closed, control-freak administration I’ve ever covered,” Sanger said.