While celebrating the FCC’s vote to repeal net neutrality regulations yesterday, CNS News editor-in-chief Terry Jeffrey warned that if the government were to regulate self-driving cars in the same way it once regulated the internet, then it might someday prevent anti-abortion protesters from being able to attend rallies.
Yesterday on “Washington Watch,” Jeffrey joined host and Family Research Council president Tony Perkins to discuss why he believed rolling back net neutrality rules was a good decision. Like many of his right-wing counterparts, Jeffrey argued that net neutrality never really existed because tech giants like Facebook and Twitter have suppressed conservative voices. He went on to draw out an analogy to self-driving cars.
“This may seem an odd comparison, but I think it’s a real one, that we’re moving, Tony, toward automated cars, for example. And in the regulatory world, there’s the debate over how they’re going to regulate these automated vehicles. But you can imagine the control over our lives the government would have if they could remotely control our vehicles, which they may in fact someday be able to do and I think we have to think about that,” Jeffrey said.
“It doesn’t get discussed a lot but it’s going to happen,” Jeffrey said. “Down the road at some point automobiles are going to be automated and someone is going to be in control of the infrastructure that directs how those automobiles move.”
Jeffrey then painted a scenario where the government takes control of self-driving cars to prevent anti-choice activists from being able to transport themselves to protests.
“Imagine that the government is doing something outrageous like legalizing the killing of unborn babies and a lot of people want to go down to the Washington Mall one day a year and make it known they’re sticking up to the right for life, but the only way they can get through to that Mall is by getting on a transportation system that’s controlled by the government,” Jeffrey said.
