During consideration of the fiscal 2024 Transportation-HUD appropriations bill (H.R. 4820), Representative Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) offered an amendment that would prohibit the use of federal funds to implement Section 24220 of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which requires that all new passenger motor vehicles be equipped with “advanced drunk and impaired driving prevention technology.”
The House rejected Massie’s amendment on November 7, 2023 by a vote of 201 to 229 (Roll Call 616). We have assigned pluses to the yeas because this federal “kill-switch” mandate to forcibly “monitor the performance” of every driver and automatically “prevent or limit motor vehicle operation” is a violation of the fundamental right of the American people to travel freely, with a reasonable expectation of privacy. The Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution not only protect against “unreasonable searches and seizures” of persons and their possessions, but also provide that no person shall be deprived of “liberty, or property, without due process of law.”
