Authored by Alejandro A. Tagliavini via The Mises Institute,
Big Brother is a character in George Orwell’s novel 1984, the entity that governs Oceania, through the tyrannical single party – the Ingsoc. No one knows about it, but it is omnipresent through telescreens with strong propaganda and controlling everything.
An article written by Steve Watson in Modernity.news, gives an account of how the surveillance state has found its new frontier: the dashboard of your car. What was once a symbol of American freedom and independence, automobiles are rapidly transforming into a high-tech cage that watches their every move and can override their decisions at will.
In a post shared on X, users detailed the multiple complaints about Subaru’s improved “EyeSight” AI system, which is present in the latest models. According to drivers, the system gets quick glimpses beyond their intentions to plan their route. At the same time, Biden-era federal mandates were put in place to make this level of surveillance mandatory on every new vehicle by 2027.
They even catch a momentary glance to change a song or admire the landscape and activate constant alerts. Thus, its new Emergency Stop Assist with Safe Lane Selection function can detect an “unresponsive” driver and issue increasing alerts through sounds and vibrations at the steering wheel, and then take full control: automatically brake, reduce the vehicle’s speed, direct it to the side of the road, and activate hazard lights.
This is not an optional trick but would be imposed by the state. It’s being rolled out as standard “safety” technology, but drivers call it a domineering electronic babysitter who treats competent adults like children. It serves as a chilling preview of where the entire auto industry is headed under government pressure.
This type of intrusive surveillance is precisely the tool that a police state would dream of to exert total control over personal movements. If authorities achieve deeper integration with these systems, they could effectively decide when, where, and who can drive.
The launch of Subaru is just the latest sticking point in a broader push toward vehicle surveillance that goes far beyond basic security. A federal mandate – included in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 – requires all new passenger vehicles sold in the US to include advanced drunk or drug-impaired driving prevention technology, starting with 2027 model years.
As detailed in the New York Post report, this means infrared cameras and sensors that constantly monitor eyes, faces, head position, and behavior for distractions, drowsiness, or deterioration, with the power to prevent the car from starting or limit its operation. It seems very appropriate, but it implies a great deal of arbitrariness if it comes into the hands of bureaucrats.
Manufacturers are already patenting and deploying even more aggressive systems, including biometric scans that analyze everything from gait to heart rate to AI face scanning, lip reading, and emotional monitoring. The problem is that the data won’t stay in the car: it could make its way to insurers for risk scoring, law enforcement, or worse, to the knowledge of Big Brother: as cross-checks of drivers with police databases, before the vehicle is even allowed to move.
Authorities are already showing interest in using these tools as a weapon for broader travel restrictions. In Massachusetts, Democrats introduced a bill aimed at reducing vehicle miles traveled statewide to meet climate goals, pushing policies that critics say amount to limiting the distance people can drive in their own cars, clearly limiting their freedom.
Globalist agendas – usually driven by left-wing statists – on climate, excessive big-government intervention, and forced cooperation between business and state converge to strip away the last vestiges of personal autonomy on the roads. What starts as “safety features” and “environmental goals” ends with the car deciding personal freedom, to the point of deciding who can leave the garage.
It is not only the statists of the left who try to monitor in order to control, but also those of the right. For example, the president of Argentina has had meetings with Peter Thiel, surrounded by controversy over the publication of a manifesto by his surveillance company Palantir that summarizes the central ideas of the book The Technological Republic.
Beyond spying on all citizens, it urges the recovery of compulsory military service – a true modern slavery – and the development of weapons with artificial intelligence for states, with technologies for critical military and national security applications for the new era of deterrence built on AI (that) is about to begin.
“The only real answer is rejection: refuse to buy these guarded vehicles… and preserve the used car market as the last refuge of true driving freedom,” concludes Steve Watson.
In short, whatever the outcome, you can be sure that, in the end, freedom and private enterprise will always prevail. Despite the fame they have, the truth is that even intelligence agencies such as the CIA, the Mossad, or the Chinese MSS are inefficient to the point of causing hilarity.
On the other hand, private initiatives are impossible to stop by governments that have been trying, even with the help of “private” sectors – the friends of power – such as banking and financial oligopolies protected by the states.