Congressman Comments On His Failed Amendment

Remember back in 2021 when President Joe Biden’s massive $1 trillion infrastructure bill was rolled out? Sure, the headlines were all about roads, bridges, and broadband expansion, but buried deep inside was a little gem that hardly anyone noticed—until now. It’s a provision that would make Orwell proud: a government-mandated vehicle, “kill switch,” set to go live by 2026. Yep, you read that right.

Former Congressman Bob Barr was one of the first to sound the alarm, calling attention to this sinister clause disguised as a measure to combat drunk driving. The idea of giving the government the power to shut down your car remotely sounds like something out of a dystopian novel. And yet, here we are, with this little nugget tucked into a 2,702-page bill, because why not sneak something like that in when no one’s looking?

Now, most Americans probably didn’t catch wind of this until recently when Representative Thomas Massie tried to strip funding for the mandate. Massie, a libertarian-leaning Republican who actually cares about your rights, called out the bill for what it really is—an infringement on the “fundamental right to travel.” And guess what happened? Nineteen Republicans joined nearly every Democrat in voting down Massie’s amendment. Shocking? Maybe not so much.

But here’s where it gets good. Massie was vilified by, you guessed it, the so-called “fact-checkers.” USA Today, the AP, PolitiFact—they all rushed to label the “kill switch” narrative as false, mostly false, or whatever flavor of “nothing to see here” fit their agenda that day. According to these defenders of the truth, since the bill doesn’t explicitly say “kill switch,” there’s nothing to worry about. As if the absence of those exact words somehow makes this a non-issue. Classic gaslighting.

But Barr and Massie weren’t pulling this idea out of thin air. The bill’s own language talks about technology that “passively monitors” the driver and can “prevent or limit motor vehicle operation if impairment is detected.” Translation: If Big Brother thinks you’ve had one too many, or heaven forbid, the system glitches, your car’s not going anywhere. Sure, the bill doesn’t mention notifying law enforcement yet—but does anyone seriously believe the government wouldn’t ask for that data later on?

Even Snopes, who somehow managed to rate this whole mess as a “mixture” of truth and fiction, conceded that the system would monitor drivers and could disable the car. But hey, why worry? It’s not like government overreach ever spirals out of control, right?

The real kicker here is how little anyone seems to care about the glaring privacy violations this law would introduce. This technology would be standard in every new car, tracking your behavior whether you like it or not. Let’s face it, with traffic cameras on every corner, NSA surveillance, and now potentially car-killing computers, the Fourth Amendment is starting to look like a quaint relic from the past.

So, while the fact-checkers play word games, the real concern is clear: the federal government wants a foot in your car door, ready to shut it down at the push of a button. The fact they snuck this into a trillion-dollar spending spree just shows they knew people wouldn’t go for it if it were front and center. But like all good surveillance state tactics, they’ll deny it until the day comes when it’s too late to turn back.

Brace yourselves because the road to 2026 is looking more and more like the highway to 1984.