A law that our founding fathers would have killed to stop is being hugged by those who hate the police, yet love central control over your life and bank account. Only communist China has a leg up over this one.
Blade Runner (1982), I, Robot (2004), and M3GAN (2023) are some of the movies that show the advancement of technology over the years and how AI can go rogue. The Black Mirror TV series takes such a theme to the next level, offering audiences the dark side of technology gone wrong.
Today, we see how lawmakers enforce such technology onto consumers to control how they live their lives. The US federal government may force automakers to install kill switches in new cars, allowing them to access vehicles and shut them off whenever they want instantly.
Ehline Law and our personal injury attorneys are advocates of privacy, and we raise our voices in creating awareness on such topics, allowing readers to understand the implications of breaching privacy and how it may affect our lives. Let’s discuss the new law that enforces kill switches in new vehicles.
Advanced Drunk Driving Technologies or a Case of Rogue AI?
In a perfect world, installing kill switches in new vehicles seems harmless. After all, who wouldn’t want such technology when it has the potential to end fatal car chases perpetrated by criminals on the run? However, in a country far from perfect, having kill switches installed in every car, SUV, truck, and other motor vehicles can have far-reaching consequences than one can comprehend.
Big Brother Is Watching You! Kill Switches Are Not as Innocent as You May Believe
According to former US Representative Bob Barr, the bill signed into law by President Joe Biden requires the kill switch installed in the vehicle to monitor the driver’s cognitive status, whether or not the driver is impaired or not. In other words, like the Communist Chinese Biden borrows money from, the state gets to decide if we are sane and cut off our car transport and bank unless we agree. Sound JUST like Logan’s Run, right? If a politician receives campaign funds from a company previously convicted of femoly fraud for lying about drug efficacy and now wants to inject your kids with a tax-funded, experimental “vaccine,” don’t think your call will move unless you agree with Big Brother, according to the right.
The Democrats in the federal government hope the bill will help reduce the number of motor vehicle deaths in the country. Every life is important, and we stand by initiatives that help save lives, but at what cost – the freedom offered by the American Constitution? Isn’t banning driving altogether a better way of reducing motor vehicle fatalities than violating the Constitution and affecting the lives of many drivers across the country?
This is reminiscent of Big Brother, a fictional character from George Orwell’s dystopian 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. “Big Brother is Watching You!”
The “Advanced Drunk Driving Prevention” System Could Violate Whatever Little Privacy We Have Left
If the system (kill switch) measures a driver’s behavior as impaired, there is a possibility that the vehicle may shut off and won’t turn on, leaving you stranded. But that’s not all. The kill switch would be an open program that would allow government and law enforcement access to do whatever they want with your vehicle. To do such things, they may not even require a warrant!
What’s troublesome with such technology, or any other technology connected to the internet, is the fact that it is vulnerable to threats and hackers. A hacker could easily access the vehicle and turn it off in a dangerous location.
Installing kill switches and giving law enforcement access is a violation of Americans’ privacy rights. There is no legislation that defines “impaired driving,” which means that the term is open to interpretation by the Department of Transportation (DoT) and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
Giving government agencies remote control of your vehicle could seriously shake up the legal world and lead to all sorts of issues, from a severe invasion of what little privacy we have to sexual assaults or murder when the kill switch locks up the engine after detecting behavior that it may recognize as drunk driving.
The program could easily misunderstand a tired driver for drunk driving and force the vehicle to stop.
How could American lawmakers let such legislation go through? Word has it that the Senate or the House did not debate over the bill. Fortunately, it is not enforceable until 2026. Americans have plenty of time to raise their voice and ask the government to provide an explanation or pressure them into rethinking a better way of reducing motor vehicle fatalities.
Nothing to Worry About as Experts Try to Convince the Public
There is another argument to all the claims made about the new “kill switch” law, which is by people who believe that the bipartisan infrastructure bill signed by President Biden does not amount to a kill switch. Experts believe that the legislation requires vehicles to have advanced impaired driving prevention technology but does not state that it would provide government agencies access and control to people’s vehicles.
The $1 trillion bipartisan deal that includes the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act aims at reducing drunk driving deaths in the United States by requiring vehicles to come fitted with advanced impaired driving technology. Experts of impaired driving prevention technology believe that many are making claims that do not reflect what these tools do.
Under the details of the bill, the NHTSA has three years to research and define what technologies they wish to see in vehicles. Once they decide on the technologies, automakers will have two to three years to comply with the recommendations presented by the NHTSA.
We agree that the law does not clearly state what others are claiming but isn’t giving NHTSA, a government agency, the power to decide and recommend technologies according to their wishes.
For example, the law requires NHTSA to specify technology that would monitor a driver’s blood alcohol concentration and prevent or limit motor vehicle operation if the driver is impaired. But what’s stopping NHTSA from violating an American citizen’s privacy?
Jeffrey Michael, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University’s Center, states that the technologies in development cannot use the data collected inside vehicles to notify law enforcement authorities or give government officials access to an individual’s vehicles.
If we’re going to trust such “experts,” we might as well believe that the government did not control free speech in the “Hunter-Biden laptop story” over Twitter.
Schedule a Free Consultation with Ehline Law
If you suffered harm from an invasion of privacy, contact us at (833) LETS-SUE for a free consultation, as you may be eligible for compensation.