Americans have increasingly surrendered their privacy to the ever-encroaching tech state. From advertisers tracking your every purchase to cameras capturing the exterior of your car on highways, the surveillance state is not new. Mostly, the public has acquiesced to these intrusions for convenience. But a new law passed in the Biden era, which has yet to take effect, will usher in a whole new level of intrusion with a kill switch inside your car.
Put bluntly, a camera will be fixed to monitor the driver, and if what the camera sees is not acceptable, a “kill switch” will be engaged to render the vehicle inoperable. This week, Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) introduced legislation that would repeal this new mandate. "In January, 57 Republicans joined 211 Democrats to preserve the Biden-Harris mandate requiring kill switches in new cars — a troubling example of government overreach. Americans don't need Big Brother monitoring them behind the wheel. That's why I filed an amendment today to kill the kill switch once and for all," Roy was quoted as saying.
Kill Switch Road Paved With Good Intentions
Of course, the legislation is intended to do good. Still, most lawmakers who voted for this back in 2021 haven't bothered to game out the myriad assaults on individual civil rights that would occur if this new rule went into effect. The kill switch is part of the HALT Drunk Driving Act and is purported to be advanced technology to reduce drunk driving.
As Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) remarked, "The car itself will monitor your driving, and if the car thinks that you're not doing a good job driving, it will disable itself… So the car dashboard becomes your judge, your jury, and your executioner."
This technology not only exists but is already being used in some cars. Tesla vehicles, for example, come with one camera trained on the driver. The purpose is to ensure the driver monitors the car while in self-driving mode. So purchasers who want full self-driving capabilities must submit to monitoring to ensure they continue supervising the car. Should an owner run afoul, Tesla reserves the right to suspend the vehicle's full self-driving technology. Essentially, the driver swaps their privacy behind the wheel for the pleasure of allowing the vehicle to drive itself.
However, this new law does not take into account the car owner's wishes; it simply comes with this technology, like it or not – and there are plenty of people who do not. Reason Magazine points out that cars "are already surveillance hubs on wheels." And this is largely true because of trackers and sensors – some vehicles even transmit data to insurance companies – but a mandatory kill switch is another matter entirely. It essentially hands over the ability to drive based on subjective evidence. What if the driver swerved to miss hitting a child? Could that swerve be misinterpreted as a sign of potential drunkenness? There are just too many what-ifs that could happen if Big Brother takes the wheel. As Rep. Roy wrote on his X account, "Inviting Big Brother into our cars is nonsense. Government-mandated 'kill switches' are a direct threat to personal freedom and privacy. Kill the Kill Switch."
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