Big Tech Lobbyist Language Made It Verbatim Into NY's Hedged Repair Bill (arstechnica.com) 42
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: When New York became the first state to pass a heavily modified right-to-repair bill late last year, it was apparent that lobbyists had succeeded in last-minute changes to the law's specifics. A new report from the online magazine Grist details the ways in which Gov. Kathy Hochul made changes identical to those proposed by a tech trade association. In a report co-published with nonprofit newsroom The Markup, Maddie Stone writes that documents surrounding the drafting and debate over the bill show that many of the changes signed by Hochul were the same as those proposed by TechNet, which represents Apple, Google, Samsung, and other technology companies.
The bill would have required that companies that provide parts, tools, manuals, and diagnostic equipment or software to their own repair networks also make them available to independent repair shops and individuals. It saw heavy opposition from trade groups before its passing. New York Assemblymember Patricia Fahy, the bill's sponsor, told Grist that backers had to make "a lot of changes to get it over the finish line in the first day or two of June." The bill passed with broad bipartisan support, but it was pared down to focus only on small electronics. Between that passage and the December signing, lobbyists working for TechNet and firms including Apple, Google, and Microsoft met with the governor, according to state ethics filings. Apple, IBM, and TechNet asked Hochul to veto the bill, while Microsoft sought to cooperate with Fahy on changes.
Later, TechNet sent a version of the bill that limited the effects to later products and excluded printed circuit boards and business-to-business or government contracts, according to Grist. Crucially, the new version, which had changes attributed to a TechNet vice president, allows for companies to offer "assemblies" of parts if the companies say the parts pose a "safety risk." TechNet's version also suggested independent repair shops should be forced to provide customers with "a written notice of US warranty laws" before they can start work. TechNet's suggestions made their way to the Federal Trade Commission. A staffer at the FTC took aim at the assembly clause, the exclusion of security workarounds for repair, and other elements. Dan Salsburg, chief counsel for the FTC's Office of Technology, Research, and Investigation, wrote that TechNet's suggestions had "a common theme -- ensuring that manufacturers retain control over the market for the repair of their products."
The bill would have required that companies that provide parts, tools, manuals, and diagnostic equipment or software to their own repair networks also make them available to independent repair shops and individuals. It saw heavy opposition from trade groups before its passing. New York Assemblymember Patricia Fahy, the bill's sponsor, told Grist that backers had to make "a lot of changes to get it over the finish line in the first day or two of June." The bill passed with broad bipartisan support, but it was pared down to focus only on small electronics. Between that passage and the December signing, lobbyists working for TechNet and firms including Apple, Google, and Microsoft met with the governor, according to state ethics filings. Apple, IBM, and TechNet asked Hochul to veto the bill, while Microsoft sought to cooperate with Fahy on changes.
Later, TechNet sent a version of the bill that limited the effects to later products and excluded printed circuit boards and business-to-business or government contracts, according to Grist. Crucially, the new version, which had changes attributed to a TechNet vice president, allows for companies to offer "assemblies" of parts if the companies say the parts pose a "safety risk." TechNet's version also suggested independent repair shops should be forced to provide customers with "a written notice of US warranty laws" before they can start work. TechNet's suggestions made their way to the Federal Trade Commission. A staffer at the FTC took aim at the assembly clause, the exclusion of security workarounds for repair, and other elements. Dan Salsburg, chief counsel for the FTC's Office of Technology, Research, and Investigation, wrote that TechNet's suggestions had "a common theme -- ensuring that manufacturers retain control over the market for the repair of their products."
Money goes a long way (Score:1, Flamebait)
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Rossman must be screaming right now (Score:2)
Poor Louis, he tried.
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Yeah he did a video or two about it when she signed it with their "recommendations" put in.
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Yea, you could tell Louis was really deflated, after all that excitement that something was happening, the politicians can now say, they got the bill through, but in reality nothing changes. Legislating improvements that will have teeth will be just that much harder now, that a "right to repair" bill, in name only, has been passed.
You can sort of see the process of how "people power" gets undermined at every turn. First they resist in legislating at all, if that fails, then they water down the legislation o
This is where we need blockchain... (Score:1)
To know where and when and by whom each piece of law was added...
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From the TFA:
Later, TechNet sent a version of the bill that limited the effects to later products and excluded printed circuit boards and business-to-business or government contracts, according to Grist. Crucially, the new version, which had changes attributed to a TechNet vice president, allows for companies to offer "assemblies" of parts if the companies say the parts pose a "safety risk."
TechNet wrote the bill, the legislators passed it and the brain-dead Governor signed it. If I were a citizen of New York I'd be pretty pissed right now, then again most of the legislation passed by legislatures, including Congress get voted on without being read.
All you need is a sponsor, and a lobbyist and that's how we all get screwed.
Re:This is where we need blockchain... (Score:4, Interesting)
Right now the good folk of Ohio are learning that safety regulations for carrying dangerous goods on trains were relaxed a few years ago at the behest of the train companies and the worst has happened already. [newscientist.com]
Interestingly the Unions attempted to call attention to what was likely to happen, but were ignored, and when they went on strike in an attempt to negotiate paid sick leave* they were forced back to work by the Feds.
I wonder how many people in Ohio and the surrounding regions are going to develop cancer as a result of this spill?
Your country is run by and for corporations. Get used to it.
* Sick leave is a safety issue and as a non-American I'm appalled there are no Federal minimums, but see above for the answer why.
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No, not really. Lobbying has always been part of politics regardless of country or age. Even in ancient Rome, there was lobbying/bribery. Where money or power is involved good people can do bad things that's why the people have to be vigilant and hold their leaders accountable.
As for Ohio, that's still under investigation by the NTSB but also shows again how critical our infrastructure is, even privately held infrastructure to our economy and safety. The laws and regulations change, albeit slowly. I mean we
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Lobbying has always been part of politics regardless of country or age.
Plenty of the stuff that goes on in America is completely illegal in democratic countries. Ancient Rome was not one.
Americans don't have the choice of holding your leaders accountable, no matter how vigilant you are because the system that was set up in the 18th century made sure you would not be able to, and you've never really reformed it.
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Oh, there are illegalities involved but getting pre-wrapped legislation that just requires sponsorship is just like letting the smart kid do your algebra homework. Legislators have staff that will write part of it, lobbyists will take it and give them back something that their lawyers have altered to reflect their interests. It's very corrupt and needs to stop. Eventually, the legislator either retires with a fat pot of money or they go into private business as a golden path from their days as a lawmaker.
An
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Make all legislation public. If it doesn't involve national security with classified witnesses, put a camera in the room and broadcast it for free. These public meetings do sometimes stop city councils from getting away with corruption - rare but it happens. The same needs to happen in state and federal legislatures. Any amendment to bills that make it out of committee should be accompanied by sworn affidavits that the changes are an original work of the legislator.
Now lobbying is a right of free speech.
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Lobbying used to be an open platform for discussion with politicians. Now it's literally, "here's some money to make my shit more important than the other people's shit."
We've had "public legislation" in our state. Even some measures on fairly large topics put to the public vote. Every, single, time that the vote doesn't go the way the governor wants it to go, she vetoes it, then gives a speech declaring the public too stupid to know what they are voting on. If that's not the perfect summary of our elected
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America was founded on the idea of freedom for the richest individual people, subjugation for everyone else. Though, of course, the subjugation was fancied up and given fun talking points to keep the public ready to jump in as militias when necessary to help the wealthy maintain their wealth or gain more, but it's all we've ever been. Once we declared massive corporations to be people, they got to participate fully in the con, and the rest of us are viewed as even less human than we used to be. Corporations
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Nah. Just apply NASCAR advertising rules to politics. Every politician wears a jacket with logos and names of donors. The logo size being proportional to the donation. At a glance you’ll see who owns who.
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The entire lawmaking process at this point is a massive disaster, created intentionally to cover up the most nefarious measures with pretty window dressing that gets the average half-paying-attention voter to cheer the politicians forward. What we really need, aside from an entirely new set of politicians that aren't firmly entrenched in the quagmire that is current politics, is a simplification of lawmaking. Vote on individual measures that are clear, precisely worded, and single-purpose. These grand, swee
The lobbyists own the committees (Score:2)
I don't know why anyone would expect something else to happen. We just vote in the same kind of people year after year. When we ignore our national and state senators and representatives and just keep voting red or blue to keep the status quo what do people think is going to happen?
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We can't even get them to ignore TurboTax lobbyists when it comes to simplifying the tax codes. We'll never get them to ignore Apple, Google, Samsung, etc... no matter how many D's are by their names and no matter how much negative press they get.
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In this case, it seems they own the governor, Kathy Hochul. To the point where she can be persuaded to block a law because some lobby group tells her to.
In a functioning democracy, signing a law is a formality unless the president (or in this case the governor I guess) has serious doubts if it is constitutional.
We had that case a few years ago in Germany, but as far as I remember it was the only case in decades. And the questionable aspect was the risk of indirect damage to free speech. Much more serious th
Re:The lobbyists own the committees (Score:5, Interesting)
In a functioning democracy, signing a law is a formality....
When the U.S. was formed, its founding fathers had other democracies to look at for both inspiration and concerns. One of those concerns was giving Congress too much power, which is why they settled on the triad of authority: executive, legislative, and judicial. Each is intended to balance the powers of the others.
All power structures can be abused and broken, but the U.S. power triad was a first; and that's because all others were deemed to be fundamentally broken at that point in time. Germany does some things right, and it does some things wrong, but the fundamental government structures can't be so cleanly divided into functioning and non-functioning democracies.
All government structures function poorly on some levels, and that almost always boils down to whether we agree with the outcomes. The tendency is to think that government is working well if we agree with the results, and to think that it works poorly in most other cases.
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The constitution effectively only acknowledges a dual balance of power. The courts effectively weren't involved really. This changed in 1803.
Marbury vs Madison: two branches of government at a deadlock (one being an outgoing congress no longer even present), over a relatively minor issue that would moot in a couple of years. There was no clear jurisdiction on how to force a president to follow the law. Jefferson was mainly of the attitude of "screw you, court!" (high ideals on paper, low politics in pract
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"Vote for me and I promise to vote for/against abortion; and for all other issues which are of lesser importance and for which you the voters shouldn't worry your heads over, I will count up the amount of cash contributions to decide how to vote."
Ah USA (Score:1)
Where democracy is based on how many politicians you can buy. The people speak but the politicians don't listen and they still get elected because... money.
To tell the truth it's not just USA. We talk about democracy but we implement anything but. I don't blame the politicians because most electors are so comfortable that they don't even care. They will vote them in again and again.
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Where democracy is based on how many politicians you can buy. The people speak but the politicians don't listen and they still get elected because... money.
To tell the truth it's not just USA. We talk about democracy but we implement anything but. I don't blame the politicians because most electors are so comfortable that they don't even care. They will vote them in again and again.
It's because of bread and circus. Unfortunately politics runs on the knowledge that a large portion of the population just doesn't care, and will not hold anyone to account, as long as their basic wants and needs are satisfied.
Would've made little difference (Score:2)
The bill would have required that companies that provide parts, tools, manuals, and diagnostic equipment or software to their own repair networks also make them available to independent repair shops and individuals.
The parts would just be made available at a price which makes them unprofitable for a 3rd party business to perform the repair. As with Apple's self-repair offerings, they really only make economic sense if you're doing the repair yourself and absolutely insist on using genuine Apple components. If you were running a repair shop though, buying parts from Apple would require pricing your repair services higher than what Apple charges in order to turn a profit.
Unless you're going to start legislating what f
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An oil filter for a car is a pretty simple thing for a third party parts manufacturer to produce their own compatible part which meets OEM specifications, a new motherboard for an iPhone is not.
No, but replacing a battery should not require heat guns, glue dissolving chemicals, and reauthorization software to accomplish. If any respectable watch repairshop can replace a battery in a watch rated for 200 atmospheres, a battery in a cell phone shouldn't require sending the phone back to the factory.
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Amen
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> first party manufacturers
Is Apple even a first party manufacturer for... well... anything anymore? There was all that hype when the cylindrical Mac Pro was going to be assembled in Austin a while back. But that Pro has been discontinued. And it was only ever final assembly that took place there anyway. The CPU, memory, storage, video, and all of that were purchased from third parties. Hell, Apple doesn't even manufacture it's own "Apple Silicon" chips.
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For sale (Score:2)
Bribes (Score:2)
Just like ads (Score:2)
Bought and paid for to show up in places as dictated by the sponsors.
US politicians really are the best money can buy, aren't you proud of electing them? /s
Not a Lobbying Regulation Issue (Score:1)
just on a side note regarding the "verbatim" allegation, note that any deletion is "verbatim", by definition. And there is typically an optimal formulation of an idea, especially in legal documents.
Just FYI, neither old-fashioned lobbying regulations nor a modern regulation based on the updated OECD Recommendation on Lobbying
(in the works, the draft can be found here: https://www.oecd.org/gov/ethic... [oecd.org])
can prevent this from happening. Formally, the process seems to have run correctly, I mean transparently. A
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No.