Congress Votes Against Amendment to Defund Government-Mandated ‘Kill Switch’ in Vehicles

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) explains his resolution seeking information on Ray Epps is too important to be "memory-holed." (House Judiciary Committee/Screenshot via The Epoch Times)

Congress has voted against Rep. Thomas Massie’s (R-Ky.) amendment to defund a government-mandated kill switch in vehicles built after 2026.

Buried in a section of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act is a provision to implement “advanced drunk and impaired driving prevention technology” that will shut down cars if sensors detect that the driver is in any way not in condition to drive.

“It’s like something from a dystopian science fiction movie, and it’s certainly not constitutional,” Rep. Massie told The Epoch Times.

There are several ethical problems surrounding the legislation, Rep. Massie said.

“You’re trying to have technology adjudicate a basic civil right, which is the right to travel,” he said. “It raises so many questions.”

If the technology determines one is impaired and shuts down the vehicle, effectively stranding the person on the side of the road, Rep. Massie asked how that driver would appeal the conviction at the dashboard.

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“Throughout the section, it says ‘passively,’ which really means automatically without the driver’s active cooperation,” he said.

The law states that it will use performance as a gating factor on whether one is allowed to continue operating the vehicle, as well as utilize technology to monitor whether the driver has alcohol in their system.

The system will make distinct changes to driving behavior, he said.

“Presumably, your car wouldn’t just all of the sudden disable itself,” he said. “It’s probably going to keep score and give you a warning on the dashboard, and if that’s the case, it’s not hard to imagine a scenario where you’ve been on a trip and you’ve swerved twice to miss wildlife. Now your score is precipitously low. Then you see your neighbor’s pet in the road in front of you. Do you swerve to dodge it to hit it to keep your score from going down to a level that will disable your car?”

‘Who Would Monitor This?’

There are significant Due Process problems with this provision, Rep. Massie said, which is essentially making one’s car the judge and the jury.

“Who would monitor this?” he asked. “Who would deal with the appeals? Does your insurance company have access to the driving record? Who has access to the data? What form is the data? Is it location data? Would it require a warrant to obtain the data? Or is it going to be automatically streamed to some database that can be accessed by who knows what agency, private or governmental?”

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Shultz (D-Fla.) spoke against the amendment, arguing that the bill doesn’t require auto manufacturers to instill kill switches.

“Passive drunk driving technology is a vital tool in safeguarding our loved ones and other innocent people on our roads,” she said. “This new technology offers a lifeline of hope to not only save lives but to prevent the lifelong emotional toll and gargantuan costs these accidents inflict on families. Deadly drunk driving accidents can echo across generations, but we can seize this opportunity to stop such tragedies.”

Rep. Wasserman compared Rep. Massie’s warning over privacy issues with the technology to “the same inane calls with seatbelt requirements.”

“But you don’t have a right to engage in potentially fatal behavior that we know poses a major health threat to public safety,” she said. “Passive drunk driving technology is pro-police. This anti-drunk driving technology lightens the load on the police officers, allowing them to focus on more pressing safety concerns.”

In response during the congressional hearing, Rep. Massie said preventive drunk driving technology already exists.

“Drunk driving is a serious problem,” he said. “That’s why 31 states already have a law to implement interlock ignition technology where if you’ve been convicted of a DUI, you have to pass this test in order to operate your vehicle. But this federal law that I seek to defund goes far beyond that.”

Rep. Massie said the passage of the bill describing how the technology would “prevent or limit motor vehicle operation” is the description of a kill switch.

Rep. Janice Schakowsky (D-Ill.) criticized Republicans who supported the amendment.

“This technology has the potential of saving thousands of lives,” she said. “I don’t see that you’re agreeing that we should be saving those lives.”

Both Reps. Shultz and Schakowsky were among the 210 Democrats who voted against the amendment, while two Democrats—Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.) voted in favor of the amendment.

‘It Violates the Fourth Amendment’

Rep. Massie said it’s not known how the technology will work, adding that the Department of Transportation hasn’t responded to his request for an explanation of how the system will be implemented.

“Will this have cameras inside the car?” he asked. “Will it monitor your eyes to see if you’re focused on the road? Will it have cameras on the outside of the car? How will it know what your performance is relative to the road that you’re driving on if it doesn’t, in fact, know which road you’re driving on?”

Rep. Massie said the issue isn’t about preventing drunk driving.

“If it were, it would just be about blood alcohol content,” he said. “This law has far more than that in it. It violates the Fourth Amendment. It violates so many amendments. It violates things that are so fundamental to our rights they’re not even in the Constitution, like the right to travel.”