Why is Trump administration supporting Biden’s Orwellian mandatory kill switches on all new automobiles?

Mandates square with Trump’s advancement of a digital surveillance state coming at us from all angles

Yesterday, in an underreported story, 57 Republican members of Congress joined Democrats in voting down an amendment that would have repealed Joe Biden’s mandatory automobile kill switch.

“Kill switch” you ask? What is that all about?

In a back-page article Fox News casually reports:

“Fifty-seven Republicans voted with the vast majority of Democrats on Thursday to keep a Biden-era mandate enabling government remote control of vehicles, drawing backlash from conservatives like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.”

Government remote control of our vehicles? In America? This should be the biggest screaming headline of the day, and yet most Americans aren’t even aware of it.

Fox further reports:

“The group voted to defeat an amendment proposed by Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., that would have rolled back government requirements for the development of a ‘kill switch’ to disable the cars of impaired drivers.”

Massie’s amendment failed by a vote of 164-268.

Ah, but it’s only for drunk drivers, the propagandists tell us. It’s for our safety!

“The idea that the federal government would require auto manufacturers to equip cars with a ‘kill switch’ that can be controlled by the government is something you’d expect in Orwell’s 1984,” DeSantis said, referring to the fictional novel by George Orwell warning more than 75 years ago of a coming global totalitarianism that would include the Western “free” world.

Where did this Orwellian legislation originate from, you ask?

You may recall that one of former President Joe Biden’s landmark pieces of legislation was his nearly $1 trillion infrastructure bill, passed by Congress in 2021.

It was hundreds of pages long, and buried in that bill was a measure that requires automobile manufacturers to include a remote kill switch in all new vehicles made or imported into the United States starting in 2026.

I’ve been waiting to see what the Trump administration was going to do with this provision calling for a mandatory kill switch.

Yesterday, the answer was received, loud and clear. They’re totally for it.

The amendment to kill the “kill switch” was offered by Rep. Massie, a Kentucky Republican who Trump hates and is trying to defeat in this year’s primary election.

Massie stated in a post to X:

“Unfortunately, the amendment I offered to defund the federally mandated automobile kill switch did not pass. 57 Republicans joined 211 Democrats to defeat it.”

Massie is one of a small handful of Republicans in Congress who actually cares about the people and preserving what’s left of our freedom.

The others call themselves “conservatives,” but what, I have to ask, are they actually preserving?

Former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who was run out of office by Trump in the first week of this year, posted a blistering comment on X directed at Trump, writing:

“And pretty much all 57 of those Republicans are endorsed by President Trump. ‘But Thomas Massie is baaaddddddd!!!!!’”

Here is the list of the 57 Republicans who support the government, insurance companies and God knows who else having a back door into your vehicle with the ability to shut it down without your permission or acknowledgement. All they have to do is claim that you’re “impaired” while offering no evidence in a court of law, just an AI algorithm that is “monitoring” your driving habits.

This is just the latest major piece of evidence that Trump is not a true conservative. He is not for individual freedom as enshrined in our Constitution. His policies advance the surveillance state and what will ultimately become a full-on technocracy.

Come to think of it, when have you ever heard Trump talk passionately about the importance of our Constitution, separation of powers, the Bill of Rights, or any checks and balances on federal power? When asked last week by a reporter, he said the only check on his power is what’s in his own mind.

If the federal government can claim for itself the authority to render your vehicle inoperable, then I would submit there is almost nothing it can’t claim as a power over we the people. Automobiles represent our freedom of movement, and the freedom of movement, along with the Bill of Rights, is what makes America different than most of the countries of the world.

But that America is fading away, in warp speed. We are under assault from all angles by an unchecked, out of control federal government. And it doesn’t matter if we have a Republican or Democrat in the White House. The march toward a totalitarian society just keeps moving forward.

Just like Biden’s Ukraine war has now become Trump’s war, Biden’s remote kill switch just became Trump’s remote kill switch. They’re all the same.

Below is a model resolution from Liberty in Action Texas calling for the repeal of this surveillance-state legislation now having the force of law, thanks to Trump and his GOP cronies in Congress.

Whereas, the Biden Administration’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) directs the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) to issue a rule that requires new passenger vehicles to have ‘advanced drunk and impaired driving prevention technology’ by 2024; and

Whereas, this requirement amounts to a vehicle kill switch mandate as early as 2026 and Section 24220 of the IIJA requires all newly manufactured vehicles to be equipped with technology to passively monitor driver performance and to prevent vehicle operation including using eye movements, real-time breath detection, hands on steering wheel and lane position; and

Whereas, this technology’s stated aim is to detect ‘impaired’ drivers (which is not defined in statute), enabling the federal government to track every American’s vehicle (in order to know if a person is suspected of being impaired) whether or not the driver is actually drunk or impaired, this technology will allow surveillance of American citizens without a warrant, destroying our right to privacy, instituting unconstitutional tracking, and other civil rights violations; and

Whereas, a kill switch can pose frightening safety concerns cutting off power to a moving vehicle, posing grave risks to both the driver and other cars in order to get a vehicle safely parked on the side of a road, and could cause drivers to be stranded, alone, and vulnerable on the side of the road with a totally disabled vehicle among a host of other dangers,

Whereas, 31 states allow for court-mandated ignition interlock devices (IID) to prevent drivers from starting their car without first passing a self-administered breathalyzer test, there is no need for another federal mandate.