{"id":85812,"date":"2023-11-20T04:00:42","date_gmt":"2023-11-20T09:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=85812"},"modified":"2023-11-19T14:57:31","modified_gmt":"2023-11-19T19:57:31","slug":"the-fact-checkers-found-the-words-kill-switch-isnt-in-the-bill-proving-it-false","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2023\/11\/20\/the-fact-checkers-found-the-words-kill-switch-isnt-in-the-bill-proving-it-false\/","title":{"rendered":"The Fact-Checkers found the phrase “kill switch” isn’t in the bill, “proving” it false"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jon Miltimore<\/a> has yet another example of “fact-checkers” carrying water for politicians to obscure actual facts when they’re politically inconvenient:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In November 2021, former US Representative from Georgia Bob Barr wrote a little-noticed political column claiming that buried inside President Joe Biden’s $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure legislation was a dangerous provision that would go into effect in five years. <\/p>\n

“Marketed to Congress as a benign tool to help prevent drunk driving, the measure will mandate that automobile manufacturers build into every car what amounts to a ‘vehicle kill switch'”, wrote<\/a> Barr, who was the Libertarian Party’s nominee for president in 2008.<\/p>\n

Like most Americans, I had never heard of this alleged “kill switch” until a few days ago when Representative Thomas Massie, a libertarian-leaning Republican, proposed to strip the mandate’s funding.<\/p>\n

“The right to travel is fundamental, but the government has mandated a kill-switch in new vehicles sold after 2026,” said Massie. “The kill-switch will monitor driver performance and disable cars based on the information gathered.”<\/p>\n

Nineteen Republicans joined all but one Democrat in opposing Massie’s amendment, which failed.<\/p>\n

True or False?<\/strong> <\/p>\n

The claim that the feds would mandate that every new motor vehicle include technology that could disable the vehicle seemed ludicrous. So I started Googling. <\/p>\n

To my relief, I saw several fact-checkers at legacy institutions had determined the “kill switch” mandate was not true. <\/p>\n

“Our rating: False,” said<\/a> USA Today<\/em>.<\/p>\n

“ASSESSMENT: False,” said<\/a> the Associated Press. <\/p>\n

“We rate it Mostly False,” concluded<\/a> PolitiFact<\/em>. <\/p>\n

(Snopes<\/em>, a reliably left-leaning fact check group, was a little less conclusive, saying the claim was a “mixture<\/a>” of true and false.)<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, my relief evaporated once I looked at the bill itself<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Sec. 24220 of the law explicitly states: “[T]o ensure the prevention of alcohol-impaired driving fatalities, advanced drunk and impaired driving prevention technology must be standard equipment in all new passenger motor vehicles.”<\/p>\n

The legislation then goes on to define the technology as a computer system that can “passively monitor the performance of a driver<\/strong> of a motor vehicle” and can “prevent or limit motor vehicle operation<\/strong> if an impairment is detected” (emphasis added). <\/p>\n

How the system will make this determination is unclear, as is the government’s potential role in apprehending suspected drunk drivers (more on that later). <\/p>\n

But the law’s language could not be more clear: New motor vehicles must have a computer system to “monitor” drivers, and the system must be able to prevent<\/em> vehicle operation if it detects impairment. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jon Miltimore has yet another example of “fact-checkers” carrying water for politicians to obscure actual facts when they’re politically inconvenient: In November 2021, former US Representative from Georgia Bob Barr wrote a little-noticed political column claiming that buried inside President Joe Biden’s $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure legislation was a dangerous provision that would go into […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[84,28,53,13],"tags":[111,698,1406,269,661],"class_list":["post-85812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government","category-media","category-politics","category-usa","tag-cars","tag-congress","tag-joebiden","tag-propaganda","tag-regulation"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-mk4","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85812"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85812\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85816,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85812\/revisions\/85816"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}