“IBM supports right-to-repair policies that empower consumers while protecting cybersecurity, intellectual property, and critical infrastructure,” an IBM spokesperson wrote in an email to WIRED. “Given the critical and often sensitive nature of enterprise-level products, any legislation should clearly focus on consumer devices.”
Cisco did not respond to WIRED’s request for comment, but at 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 created equal.”
During the hearing, more than a dozen reparations advocates spoke from organizations like Pirg, the repair associationand iFixit oppose the bill. YouTuber and reparations advocate Luis Rossmann was there. The main problem, repair advocates say, is that the bill deliberately uses vague language to defend control over who can repair their products.
“The whole ‘information technology’ and ‘critical infrastructure’ thing is about as cynical as you can get,” says Nathan Proctor, leader of Pirg’s US right-to-repair campaign. “Lawmakers find it scary, but it just means the Internet.”
Although not clearly defined in the bill, “information technology” generally means technology such as servers and routers. “Critical infrastructure” is language taken from a 2001 federal legislation which 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 national security, economic security, national public health or safety, or any combination of those issues.”
“I can point out at least five problems with the bill as written,” Gay Gordon-Byrne, executive director of 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.”
