Tech Surveillance in New Cars to Make America an Orwellian Nightmare

Are you ready for the government to keep an eye on you inside your new car while you are driving on an average day? Like it or not, it’s coming as soon as next year, and under the same excuse the government sells you every time they take away one more civil right of yours – that it’s good for you and the country.

The surveillance measure mandated in new cars is part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act – a law passed by the Congress in 2021 and signed by then President Joe Biden. The legislation mandates that from 2027, all new cars will carry technology to monitor the driver’s state of well-being. If the monitoring system assesses that the driver is no longer safe to continue driving, it can take charge of the wheel and bring the car to a stop without the driver’s consent.

Since the past weekend when social media posts started ringing the alarm bell over the totalitarian-sounding measure, a limited number of media sources have reported on this Orwellian nightmare of Americans who want to keep the government out of their daily lives.

The website Stateofsurveillance.org summarily listed the key features of this new surveillance apparatus in new cars that take effect in 2027. The cars are required to carry “advanced drunk and impaired driving prevention technology” that includes: (1) sensors detecting alcohol levels in the breath and blood so as to take control of the vehicle if these levels cross the permissible limits and (2) sensors that monitor various bodily functions like eye movement and dilation of pupils etc. so as to judge whether the driver is showing signs of impairment, in which case it would take charge of the wheel.

As usual, the government’s rationale is to prevent drunk driving and accidents caused by impairment of the driver while driving a car. But critics say this just takes the government’s tyrannical overreach into people’s personal lives to the next level.

Responding to the heads-up on X, Republican Congressman Thomas Massie of KY shared a clip of his speech on the House floor in January this year when pro-freedom Republicans in the House introduced an amendment to defund this “automobile kill switch mandate.” In his speech, he had regarded this mandate as similar to some bad science fiction movie that makes the car dashboard one’s jury, judge, and executioner.

LifeSite News (April 27) called it an Orwellian mandate and shared a few scenarios in which this tech surveillance can go horribly wrong and punish an average good and healthy American without justification. The story included a tweet from conservative influencer Shanon Joy, who wrote: “It’s only a matter of time before you can’t turn on the heat or electricity without APPROVAL from the techno-fascist overlords.”