1. You spoke to George who is a manager at AutoNation for Mercedes Benz in San Jose a few minutes ago. Is that correct?
Answer: Yes, it is.
2. This relates to a 2023 Mercedes Benz EQS 450 4Matic which you purchased in December of 2025, seven months ago. Is that the case?
Answer: Yes.
3. What did you express to George regarding your vehicle?
Answer: I communicated to him the fact that the facilitated hacks regarding the operating software of the vehicle have repeatedly placed my life at risk.
4. How has that manifested?
Answer: The navigation system is hacked to the extent that destination replacement has occurred multiple times en route to a destination. So, without my knowledge, in the middle of my receiving directions, a third party has rerouted the car to somewhere I don't want to go, and a location about which I have no information whatsoever.
For someone who routinely receives kidnapping threats, that represents a serious problem.
5. How have you adapted to this remarkable flaw in the vehicle's safety?
Answer: I have to be constantly vigilant. I have lost all trust in Mercedes Benz overall, given the company's failure to respond to my outreach. So, I just need to check and re-check and re-check that I am heading to the right destination via a reasonable route.
6. Does the navigation system sometimes route you to destinations via unsafe roads?
Answer: Absolutely. I have received notification that I will be routed to an easily accessible destination through restricted areas and unpaved roads, for example. Obviously, in that case, I have not followed the vehicle's routing in any manner. But the potential for harm is astonishing.
7. Are there other allegations of alterations to the software of the vehicle?
Answer: I can attest to the fact that my remote access to vehicle controls such as door locking and climate control has been completely blocked. These features are simply not operational. And this matters because others should not be accessing my vehicle when I am away from it, obviously. Further, my dogs should be able to remain in an air conditioned vehicle for five minutes if I am at a rest stop while traveling.
Further allegations of harm to the vehicle are yet more serious, as they pertain to compromise of the adaptive cruise control system, and are accompanied by threats that acceleration, braking, and steering could all be altered at speed, on a freeway, for example, leading to intentional fatality.
8. To what extent are the changes to your own car's operating system reflective of changes to the operating systems of all Mercedes Benz vehicles?
Answer: This is a critical question. In general, when the FBI pays affiliates, as it has paid both AutoNation and Mercedes Benz, to make alterations that allow the FBI to have life and death control over Americans, the harm is broad-based. I would suspect that the changes have been made to all Mercedes Benz vehicles because of this pattern of conduct. The software updates to Mercedes Benz vehicles are automatically uploaded, with no involvement from car owners. So this harm could have easily been disseminated without any awareness on the part of consumers whatsoever.
9. Do you believe that other car companies may have been convinced to participate in similar compromise due to FBI guidance?
Answer: Yes, I do. I think this compromise is highly likely to have affected many other car manufacturers.
10. What is the impact on Americans if this is true?
Answer: The FBI can kill you whenever it wants to do so, simply by taking control of your vehicle remotely at a point in time it determines.
11. That would represent an astonishing violation of Americans' sovereignty and Constitutional rights.
Answer: Yes, it would. We have seen prior FBI incursions into this realm when it convinced Congress to pass "kill switch" requirements in all vehicles, allowing law enforcement to turn off the ignition of any vehicle at any time at the independent determination of law enforcement officers. This represents a tremendous safety risk to the public when our law enforcement represents an increasingly violent and predatory contingent, violating the public's freedoms with absolute impunity.
And this is not to say that we don't have honorable law enforcement officers.
But how safe is your lovely sixteen year old daughter returning from prom with her new driver's license when local law enforcement can kill the ignition of her vehicle at will?
The problems are all lamentably foreseeable. And they place the public interest in stark opposition to law enforcement's prerogatives.
Americans' cars should not be treated like remote-control Matchbox toys, in which the fate of the public becomes concealed entertainment for a predatory FBI.
12. What should happen at this juncture with regard to your own safety?
Answer: I would respectfully request an investigation of this matter by the OIG Hotline, to involve the aggregation of all FBI communications with AutoNation and Mercedes Benz regarding the intentional compromise of the software of my Mercedes Benz vehicle, as well as other Americans' Mercedes Benz vehicles. All judgments against Mercedes Benz, AutoNation, the FBI, and specific employees of these three organizations should be deposited into the Foundation I have specified for the preservation of Americans' long term sovereignty.
If I had open communication with the OIG Hotline, I would request that a series of independent software experts examine my car in detail to determine the source of the problems described herewith, and any other problems involved.
In the absence of that, Mercedes Benz should refund the vehicle and cooperate in every way with the investigative team to facilitate this inquiry.
No American wants to buy a car that will knowingly place their life at risk or endanger the lives of their loved ones.
There is no business model for such a car manufacturer and there never will be.
13. Did George indicate a willingness to refund your vehicle's purchase price given the unacceptable risks to your safety caused by the car's compromise?
Answer: No, he did not. In fact, he emphatically conveyed that he did not care what happened to customers after they purchased cars from AutoNation.
14. Did it seem to you that George was taking a payoff from the FBI directly?
Answer: George struck me as genuinely callous, even without the FBI's influence, but yes, I think he was taking a payoff, too.
George not only does not appear to care whether his customers die after driving off the lot with their new Mercedes Benz purchase, but may believe further that his profiteering is worth their demise.
15. You recently listed "safety in transportation" as one of the key components of the preservation of the sovereignty of Americans in the long term. Is your astonishing experience with AutoNation and Mercedes Benz one of the reasons why?
Answer: Without question. In the long term, we cannot accept that the FBI can kill our loved ones or ourselves in the guise of an auto accident at any time they so choose. The agency is not wise enough to make those life and death determinations, and we never want to pretend that it is worthy of that authority.
16. Will you please keep in close communication with us, given these revelations regarding improper FBI alliances with car manufacturers?
Answer: Yes, I will. Of course.
17. Thank you for speaking with us this afternoon.
Answer: You are most welcome.
Lane MacWilliams
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