“IBM supports right-to-repair policies that empower consumers while protecting cybersecurity, intellectual property, and critical infrastructure,” wrote an IBM spokesperson in an email to WIRED. “Given the critical and often sensitive nature of enterprise-level products, any legislation should be clearly scoped to consumer devices.”
Cisco did not respond to WIRED’s request for comment, but in the hearing a Cisco representative said, “Cisco supports SB-90. While it appreciates the arguments offered in favor of the right to repair, not all digital technology devices are equal.”
During the hearing, more than a dozen repair advocates spoke from organizations like Pirg, the Repair Association, and iFixit opposing the bill. YouTuber and repair advocate Louis Rossmann was there. The main problem, repair advocates say, is that the bill deliberately uses vague language to make the case for controlling who can fix their products.
“The ‘information technology’ and ‘critical infrastructure’ thing is as cynical as you can possibly be about it,” says Nathan Proctor, the leader of Pirg’s US right-to-repair campaign. “It sounds scary to lawmakers, but it just means the internet.”
Though not clearly defined in the bill, “information technology” usually means tech like servers and routers. “Critical infrastructure” is language taken from a 2001 federal legislation that defines the term as “systems and assets, whether physical or virtual, so vital to the United States that the incapacity or destruction of such systems and assets would have a debilitating impact on security, national economic security, national public health or safety, or any combination of those matters.”
“I can point out at least five problems with the bill as drafted,” Gay Gordon-Byrne, the executive director at the Repair Association, said during the hearing. “The definition of critical infrastructure is completely inadequate. The definition that has been proposed in this bill is not even a definition.”