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The Feds' Vehicle 'Kill Switch' Mandate Is a Gross (and Dangerous) Violation of Privacy

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Elderberry:
FEE by Jon Miltimore  11/22/2023

The claim that a new federal law mandates that every new motor vehicle includes technology that could disable the vehicle might sound preposterous, but it's actually true. Here are the receipts.

In November 2021, former US Representative from Georgia Bob Barr wrote a little-noticed political column claiming that buried inside President Joe Biden’s $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure legislation was a dangerous provision that would go into effect in five years.

“Marketed to Congress as a benign tool to help prevent drunk driving, the measure will mandate that automobile manufacturers build into every car what amounts to a ‘vehicle kill switch,’” wrote Barr, who was the Libertarian Party’s nominee for president in 2008.

Like most Americans, I had never heard of this alleged “kill switch” until a few days ago when Representative Thomas Massie, a libertarian-leaning Republican, proposed to strip the mandate’s funding.

“The right to travel is fundamental, but the government has mandated a kill-switch in new vehicles sold after 2026,” said Massie. “The kill-switch will monitor driver performance and disable cars based on the information gathered.”

Nineteen Republicans joined all but one Democrat in opposing Massie’s amendment, which failed.

True or False?

The claim that the feds would mandate that every new motor vehicle include technology that could disable the vehicle seemed ludicrous. So I started Googling.

To my relief, I saw several fact-checkers at legacy institutions had determined the “kill switch” mandate was not true.

Unfortunately, my relief evaporated once I looked at the bill itself.

Sec. 24220 of the law explicitly states: “[T]o ensure the prevention of alcohol-impaired driving fatalities, advanced drunk and impaired driving prevention technology must be standard equipment in all new passenger motor vehicles.”

The legislation then goes on to define the technology as a computer system that can “passively monitor the performance of a driver of a motor vehicle” and can “prevent or limit motor vehicle operation if an impairment is detected” (emphasis added).

How the system will make this determination is unclear, as is the government’s potential role in apprehending suspected drunk drivers (more on that later).

But the law’s language could not be more clear: New motor vehicles must have a computer system to “monitor” drivers, and the system must be able to prevent vehicle operation if it detects impairment.

-----

‘Secure in Persons and Effects’?

The unpleasant truth is that lawmakers slipped into a massive spending bill a mandate that stands to require all new vehicles to have AI-driven technology that can disable your vehicle if the technology determines you’ve had one beer too many. And fact-checkers are using headlines to make it sound as if the legislation does no such thing.

It’s true there is currently no mechanism in the legislation that would require law enforcement to be notified if drivers are suspected of inebriation. But the Associated Press notes that the law “leaves most of the details up to NHTSA” (the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) to determine at a future date.

From my reading of the bill, there is nothing in the legislation that would prevent NHTSA from requesting or receiving this data. Does anyone believe that in 2027, if the NHTSA requested that system manufacturers turn over the information they collect, it would be told no? Don’t bet on it. The Twitter Files show how quick companies comply when the feds come knocking on their door to retrieve their data, and just how little they care about the privacy of Americans.

More: https://fee.org/articles/the-feds-vehicle-kill-switch-mandate-is-a-gross-and-dangerous-violation-of-privacy

240B:
If you piss-off the government, they can disable your car. If you go somewhere 'not authorized', your car will be turned off.
Your car will only be enable by governmental control and permission according to your social credit score.

roamer_1:
It has to receive command. That means antenna, or through a secondary device like your phone... So if you break the antennas and refuse to enable a Bluetooth device, there is no means...

Of course, nothing I own has that complication to begin with... And just like that, neither will yours.

The_Reader_David:

--- Quote from: roamer_1 on November 26, 2023, 06:52:50 pm ---It has to receive command. That means antenna, or through a secondary device like your phone... So if you break the antennas and refuse to enable a Bluetooth device, there is no means...

Of course, nothing I own has that complication to begin with... And just like that, neither will yours.

--- End quote ---

To be the threat to liberty it is being portrayed as, that would be true.  To meet the plain meaning of the mandate as written, the disabling of the vehicle could be done by an onboard computer system with sensors without any interaction with an outside server or the government.

Smokin Joe:

--- Quote from: The_Reader_David on November 26, 2023, 07:24:19 pm ---To be the threat to liberty it is being portrayed as, that would be true.  To meet the plain meaning of the mandate as written, the disabling of the vehicle could be done by an onboard computer system with sensors without any interaction with an outside server or the government.

--- End quote ---
Let's go there. You have the bad fortune to be out in a blizzard. The roads are slippery, traction sketchy. You may be fishtailing here and there, may have spinouts or even spins and recover, with the indicated speed (how fast your tires are turning) far in excess of your actual forward progress.

Would some arbitrary line of code leave you shut down in the middle of that, even though you aren't actually driving like a maniac?

Scenario 2.

You just bought a used vehicle from a notorious drunk, one which thankfully was still in reasonably good shape. That person is observed getting hammered by local police doing a walk through, but who haven't got the word that the vehicle is now yours. Does your vehicle get shut down because someone didn't pass the word or check the new registration?

Scenario 3.

You are driving within a couple of miles of a hospital when your passenger has a heart attack. You are at most a couple minutes out, straight shot to the ER, far less time than pulling over and waiting for an ambulance would take, so you throw on your flashers and make a run for it.

At 20 over the limit, your car shuts down due to an arbitrary line of code.

The same goes with a kid in anaphylactic shock, or even someone injured.

In a nutshell, this insanity WILL cost lives. But then, "unintended consequences" are the hallmark of Leftist policy.

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