🚨 “JUDGE, JURY, AND EXECUTIONER”: Rep. Thomas Massie Moves to Defund Vehicle ‘Kill Switches’ 🚨

The battle for the future of your dashboard is heating up on Capitol Hill. Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY), joined by Scott Perry (R-PA) and Chip Roy (R-TX), has officially offered an amendment to defund a federal mandate that could require all new cars to be equipped with “kill switch” technology as early as 2026.

The “Dystopian” Mandate 🏛️⚖️

Massie slammed Section 24220 of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), which directs the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to mandate “advanced drunk and impaired driving prevention technology” in new vehicles.

Massie warned that the tech would allow your car to passively monitor your driving and disable itself if the system “disapproves” of your performance. “How do you appeal your sentence once your car has judged you to be incapable of driving?” Massie asked.

Massie painted a grim picture of a mother stranded with her children in a blizzard after her car “grounded” her for swerving to avoid a pothole or a patch of ice.

From debate:

Chair: It is now in order to consider amendment number one printed in part B of House Report 119-462. For what purpose does the gentleman from Kentucky seek recognition?

Mr. Massie: Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

The Clerk: The Clerk shall designate the amendment.

Amendment number one printed in part B of House Report number 119-462, offered by Mr. Massie of Kentucky.

Pursuant to House Resolution 1014, the gentleman from Kentucky, Mr. Massie, and a member opposed each will control five minutes. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Kentucky.

Mr. Massie: Mr. Chair, I rise in support of our amendment. This is co-sponsored by Mr. Perry from Pennsylvania and Mr. Roy from Texas, and I regret that we have to offer this amendment. What I’m going to describe will probably sound like a bad science fiction movie, but that’s what’s written into law. Right now in law, that’s going to be implemented for the—it says for 2026 and beyond. Now the reality is the technology doesn’t exist, but that doesn’t keep legislators from imagining things that they would like to do to infringe on civil liberties. But there’s a law that states that every vehicle manufactured is going to have to have a kill switch in it. 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. Imagine this: we got a snowstorm coming. A mom takes her kids out, they’re going to the grocery store. It’s snowing. They’re trying to get some groceries before the big storm hits. She swerves for a pothole. The neighbor’s pet gets in the way, swerves for that. A first responder goes by. She pulls over. Her car says, you got one more swerve and then we’re going to ground you. There it is. The next thing she has to avoid, an icy patch in the road, the car has adjudicated her as unsuitable for driving. It disables the vehicle and there she’s stranded. My question is, how do you appeal your sentence once your car, the technology in your car has judged you to be incapable of driving? Once it’s disabled you and your children at the side of the road, how do you appeal that? Do you press a button on the dashboard? Do you start talking to an AI? What if it really was somebody who was drunk? Are you really going to send a police car after this disabled vehicle? Do we have the resources to do that? There’s going to be so many false positives. The technology is unworkable. That’s why the DOT is still in the rulemaking process, trying—asking for feedback on how this thing could even exist. And it’s just a bad idea but it’s in law, and so our amendment would defund that. And with that, I’d like to reserve the balance of my time.

The gentleman reserves. The gentleman from Kentucky is recognized.

Mr. Massie: Mr. Chairman, drunk driving is a serious problem, but 31 states already have the technology to keep drunk drivers off of the road with ignition interlock devices that they can mandate. And this technology that’s in the law is not going to fix the drunk driving problem. With that, I’d like to yield two minutes to my friend from Pennsylvania, Mr. Perry.

The gentleman from Pennsylvania is yielded two minutes.

Mr. Perry: I thank the gentleman from Kentucky for his work on this and, of course, the chairman of the full committee for the hard work on appropriations. Look, none of us want to be on the road with drunk drivers, and of course, this was a solution intended to deal with them. And all of us want them to be dealt with, but I’m going to remind everybody, as my friend from Kentucky just said, there is already legislation in multiple states—dozens of states—that deal with drunk drivers through the ignition interlock system. Probably in your family somewhere, someone you know, you’ve dealt with this. I know in my family and the people I know, I’ve dealt with it. But here’s what I don’t want to see in America: everybody being punished for the people that drink and drive, including the ones that don’t drink and drive. I happen not to drink, but I’m going to be forced to have this thing in my car and I’m going to just tell you what’s next. After what Thomas said—after what Representative Massie said—the car is going to be the judge, jury, and sentencer for your crime in the car. The next thing is going to be, well, we need to hook this thing up to the government so we can dispatch the police. I’m just going to tell you what’s going to happen next. They’re going to be shutting your car off when they decide, whatever they decide from wherever they decide it. Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t know about what you think about due process and the Constitution and the Fourth Amendment and the right to not be imposed upon by illegal, unlawful search and seizure, but punishing everybody for this crime—whether they’ve committed it or not, if they’re going to commit it or not—should be unconstitutional. This shouldn’t really be a question. We all want to get to the problem, and we’re happy to work with everybody on all sides to deal with it. But you cannot punish, convict, convict and punish everybody in the country for the sake of the ones that do things that they shouldn’t do. And with that, I yield the balance to the gentleman from Kentucky.

The gentleman from Kentucky is recognized.

Mr. Massie: Last time we offered this amendment, it had bipartisan support. I urge my colleagues to vote for this amendment. It would defund an unconstitutional and unworkable mandate that has already missed the deadlines. And with that, I yield back.

The gentleman yields.