Tesla’s carefully crafted bogus image is finally unraveling. For over a decade, what many critics have called out as a calculated deception has managed to maintain its hold on the American market all the way into the corrupt DOGE breach of federal regulations. But China has had enough.
What many Americans still may not realize is that the first “driverless” Tesla fatality actually occurred in China, not the US. A brand new Tesla with autopilot engaged killed a young Chinese driver by accelerating directly into a clearly visible, bright yellow service vehicle displaying flashing caution lights.
This tragedy preceded the widely reported death of Josh Brown in Florida in April 2016, whose Tesla drove into the side of a truck. Following Brown’s death, Elon Musk boldly promised to eliminate crashes completely and enable coast-to-coast hands-free driving by 2017.
Fast forward to 2025, and Tesla vehicles appear more dangerous than ever. The alarming spike in Tesla-related fatalities during late 2024 and early 2025 tells its own story.
China has now taken decisive action. According to Motor Trend, Chinese authorities are effectively banning Tesla’s misleading autonomous driving claims:
…affected will be Tesla, which in the U.S. has long marketed its buggy and alarmingly inconsistent Level 2 driver assistance system as Full Self-Driving (now with “Supervised” appended to the name) and has routinely conducted beta testing of the technology on public roads.
“Part of the MIIT directive as we read it was a call to action to the OEMs to clean up the communication,” said Mercedes-Benz chairman and CEO Ola Källenius at Auto Shanghai 2025, where Mercedes unveiled a new, AI-powered, point-to-point advanced navigation and Level 2+ driver assistance system that requires drivers only to touch the steering wheel as the vehicle pretty much drives itself through city centers.
“I think that we have for the past 30 years been pretty straightforward to say what we can do and be very clear about what we can’t,” said Källenius, who pointed out Mercedes was the first automaker in China approved to conduct Level 3 autonomous driving testing on roads in Beijing. “So, it has not had any major effect on us.”
Consider the implications of Källenius’s statement: “No major effect on Mercedes.” This is particularly telling when you realize Mercedes not only secured Level 3 autonomous driving approval first but had already demonstrated such capabilities back in the 1980s.
The contrast couldn’t be clearer. While one “bad boy” company built its reputation on grandiose promises getting hundreds killed unnecessarily, everyone else in the market quietly delivered actual progress through honest engineering and transparent communication.
Would the Tesla still have crashed head-on into traffic without the road being wet?
Reports indicate that the Tesla was traveling towards Kowloon when it allegedly lost control on a wet road near the Kowloon Reservoir, crossed into oncoming traffic, and collided head-on with the motorcycle. The Tesla then crashed into a hillside, sustaining significant damage with a shattered windshield…
Interesting to note it was not too wet to ride a motorcycle, yet the Tesla couldn’t stay in control.
A Tesla on driverless put the pedal to the metal and crashed straight into a parked car.
A driver was ticketed for careless driving after their Tesla, which was on autopilot, crashed into a vehicle parked in a driveway in New Jersey.
A video from inside the Tesla [showed it] was turning off Georges Road in South Brunswick onto a side street.
Its sensors apparently picked up a white SUV you see coming from the opposite direction on that same side street. Police say the Tesla was on autopilot.
Technology always intersects with human rights, whether the usual technologist recognizes it or not. An abolitionist network in the 1800s defied unjust laws to free enslaved people, and today technologists are drawing explicit parallels to this tradition. We’re witnessing an evolution toward a modern Digital Underground Railroad as citizens resist what they see as Trump’s systematic human rights violations.
Imagine being stopped, having rifles pointed at your head, being harassed or detained simply because a computer system tagged you as suspicious based on the color of your hat at dawn or the car you drove.
Consider the example of Quantrill’s Raiders, who were masked armed men without uniforms similar to the “enforcers” showing up in communities today. They terrorized America in the 1860s through brutal mob acts like the Lawrence Massacre. Critics rightly compare immigration enforcement raids of Trump to these historical patterns of militant violence adjacent to state-sanctioned oppression based on race.
William Clarke’s painting of the 1863 Quantrill “offensive defense” raid on Lawrence, Kansas that targeted innocent civilians. Some called it warfare tactics to intimidate and harm anti-slavery/abolitionist Jayhawkers. Source: LJworld
The parallels connect past and present systems, exploited by white supremacist groups for them to operate outside judicial oversight, which leaves technologists at a crucial fork in the road that has been seen before.
I’m not even going to explain why President “America First” Wilson similarly sent federal troops in 1919 to open fire on Black farm workers in Arkansas, murdering hundreds after they organized in a Church to discuss fair wages. And that’s to say nothing of airplanes used in 1921 to firebomb Black neighborhoods in Oklahoma, while firefighters and police stood by doing nothing. Americans should know these past events well already, or at least be able to recognize the symbolism of the X within KKK and Nazi history.
The KKK in 1921 used bi-planes to firebomb Tulsa, OK. They also dropped racist propaganda leaflets across America. The swastika was their symbol, and the X.
While examining historical parallels and wondering where the Quantrill Raids go next, read Confederate General McCulloch complaints about the escalating civilian mistreatment by armed white supremacist mobs that expanded even under his militant command attempting to restrain them:
Civilians were accosted, homes were broken into, church steeples were shot up, and a Confederate recruiting officer, Major George N. Butts, was found shot to death on the side of a road. “They regard the life of a man less than you would that of a sheep-killing dog,” said McCulloch.
These descriptions invite reflection on modern law enforcement approaches, especially how anti-immigrant militant leaders planning systemic armed actions against American communities, may be unable to prevent their own troops devolving into total chaos, which is what the legendary patriot John Brown had warned until he was hanged for taking a stand against the violence.
John Brown grew tired of torture and murder of abolitionists and called for armed defense against expansion of slavery. Curry’s “Tragic Prelude” impressive mural can be seen in the Kansas State Capitol celebrating his moral conviction to defend Americans against tyranny in the mid-1800s.
Remember the symbolism of the X? Historical context gives perspective to the recent action against GlobalX Air, where technologists identifying with Anonymous accessed flight manifests and records of an ICE charter airline.
GlobalX airline, a Miami-based company of Canadians that shows a “team” page of only white people all the way to the board of directors. Many suspect Elon Musk is involved as his Canadian Grandfather also promoted the “X” as a symbol of “Technocracy”, a localized form of Nazism, before he relocated in 1950 to South Africa to promote apartheid as Nazism there instead.
Anonymous said their “data liberation” operation targeted specific flights that were central to ongoing litigation, including deportation flights that allegedly were rushed to depart. Why were flights in a rush? The Trump regime saw this as their way to “hack” the courts, exploit a loophole to undermine lawyers who were in process of defending national security.
A digital version of the famous General Tubman thus justified entry into the GlobalX systems as simply “enforcing a judge’s order,” positioning the patriotic act as upholding American law rather than violating it. “Anonymous has decided to enforce the Judge’s order since you and your sycophant staff ignore lawful orders that go against your fascist plans,” read the message on GlobalX’s updated website.
A U.S. judge had indeed ordered a report of flight manifests and records. And suddenly the Trump regime decided it was no longer able to be in a rush. The Anonymous disclosure, therefore serving that judge in a more timely fashion, provides records of GlobalX from January through May. It delivers clear evidence of systematic removal of many innocent people from American soil; indiscriminate Quantrill-like raids by plain-clothed masked militants targeting non-white communities for racist incarceration or death.
Making America Grotesque Again
The immigration enforcement under the current administration has been characterized by critics as operating with questionable legal authority, particularly when deportations proceed despite pending legal challenges. This creates a complex ethical terrain where some view digital intervention to serve the law as a necessary response to what they perceive as systematic circumvention of legal processes.
We must ask: Who here really operates outside the law?
The GlobalX Air files accessed do indeed document flights central to a Supreme Court case involving Venezuelan asylum seekers who were reportedly removed from the country in direct and intentional opposition to the law. The timing of such a “hack” by the Trump regime brings profound questions about their relationship to enforcement actions designed to exploit vulnerabilities in judicial oversight.
Conducting a Digital Freedom Railroad
In comparison, an emerging pattern of digital resistance to Trump draws directly from American traditions of civil action to enhance law and order and restore moral foundations. Those who engage in these actions rightfully invoke historical figures like General Tubman because they fit within a lineage of Americans who aligned defense of law and order in America to its underlying documented principles (e.g. Constitution).
The digital actions countering unlawful deportations are information exposure rather than system interruption, unlike the Trump regime’s aggressive and destructive actions. Like whistleblowers, they direct information to sunlight, creating accountability channels outside compromised structures.
Constitutional Disregard is a Trump Family Tradition
When executive actions appear to intentionally and cruelly “hack” judicial review, fundamental constitutional questions emerge. The intervention in GlobalX Air systems to deliver justice presents a complex case study in the tensions between executive enforcement power, judicial authority, and citizen intervention.
Throughout American history, from abolitionism to civil rights movements, significant moral progress has often begun with acts of civil action to serve the greater meaning of law and order. Today’s digital actions represent the latest chapter in this ongoing negotiation between law, justice, and resistance.
As we evaluate these events, we confront profound questions about democratic processes: When formal systems of checks and balances are under attack by white supremacist groups aiming to imbalance power for selfish gains, what responsibilities do citizens have? At what point does resistance to attacks on America become not just justified but necessary to restore the balance of power and prevent tyranny?
What Would LaGuardia Do?
Speaking of airlines and airports, let’s take a moment to think about LaGuardia, mayor of New York during the rise of fascism in Europe. He was well-known as a warrior of direct and uncompromising stance against authoritarianism. He understood that certain moments in history require clear moral language rather than cautious equivocation. In 1937, for example, he directly called out fascism by name and denounced dictators like Hitler and Mussolini when many American politicians were still hesitant to do so. This wasn’t just a foreign concern, but more importantly a domestic one where America First campaigns were correctly ruled an act of sedition.
The kind of illustration that still should be required in American school textbooks
We’re at a similar inflection point regarding immigration enforcement and civil liberties. When LaGuardia saw the early signs of authoritarianism, he recognized the urgent need to speak plainly about the threats he perceived, rather than softening his language out of political convenience.
Acts of resistance against extrajudicial deportations are within this tradition of urgent moral action. The Underground Railroad and abolitionists, from John Brown to General Tubman, inform Americans how direct action can effect change where formal systems have been compromised and redirected towards harm of vulnerable populations.
a blog about the poetry of information security, since 1995
