Congress Quietly Strips Right-To-Repair Provisions From US Military Spending Bill (theregister.com) 88
Congress quietly removed provisions that would have let the U.S. military fix its own equipment without relying on contractors, despite bipartisan and Pentagon support. The Register reports: The House and Senate versions of the NDAA passed earlier both included provisions that would have extended common right-to-repair rules to US military branches, requiring defense contractors to provide access to technical data, information, and components that enabled military customers to quickly repair essential equipment. Both of those provisions were stripped from the final joint-chamber reconciled version of the bill, published Monday, right-to-repair advocates at the US Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) pointed out in a press release. [...]
According to PIRG's press release on the matter, elected officials have been targeted by an "intensive lobbying push" in recent weeks against the provisions. House Armed Services Committee chair Mike Rogers (R-AL) and ranking Democrat Adam Smith (D-WA), responsible for much of the final version of the bill, have received significant contributions from defense contractors in recent years, and while correlation doesn't equal causation, it sure looks fishy. [Isaac Bowers, PIRG's federal legislative director] did tell us that he was glad that the defense sector's preferred solution to the military right to repair fight -- a "data as a service" solution -- was also excluded, so the 2026 NDAA isn't a total loss for the repairability fight. "That provision would have mandated the Pentagon access repair data through separate vendor contracts rather than receiving it upfront at the time of procurement, maintaining the defense industry's near monopoly over essential repair information and keeping troops waiting for repairs they could do quicker and cheaper themselves," Bowers said in an email.
An aide to the Democratic side of the Committee told The Register the House and Senate committees did negotiate a degree of right-to-repair permissions in the NDAA. According to the aide and a review of the final version of the bill, measures were included that require the Defense Department to identify any instances where a lack of technical data hinders operation or maintenance of weapon systems, as well as aviation systems. The bill also includes a provision that would establish a "technical data system" that would "track, manage, and enable the assessment" of data related to system maintenance and repair. Unfortunately, the technical data system portion of the NDAA mentions "authorized repair contractors" as the parties carrying out repair work, and there's also no mention of parts availability or other repairability provisions in the sections the staffer flagged -- just access to technical data. That means the provisions are unlikely to move the armed forces toward a new repairability paradigm.
According to PIRG's press release on the matter, elected officials have been targeted by an "intensive lobbying push" in recent weeks against the provisions. House Armed Services Committee chair Mike Rogers (R-AL) and ranking Democrat Adam Smith (D-WA), responsible for much of the final version of the bill, have received significant contributions from defense contractors in recent years, and while correlation doesn't equal causation, it sure looks fishy. [Isaac Bowers, PIRG's federal legislative director] did tell us that he was glad that the defense sector's preferred solution to the military right to repair fight -- a "data as a service" solution -- was also excluded, so the 2026 NDAA isn't a total loss for the repairability fight. "That provision would have mandated the Pentagon access repair data through separate vendor contracts rather than receiving it upfront at the time of procurement, maintaining the defense industry's near monopoly over essential repair information and keeping troops waiting for repairs they could do quicker and cheaper themselves," Bowers said in an email.
An aide to the Democratic side of the Committee told The Register the House and Senate committees did negotiate a degree of right-to-repair permissions in the NDAA. According to the aide and a review of the final version of the bill, measures were included that require the Defense Department to identify any instances where a lack of technical data hinders operation or maintenance of weapon systems, as well as aviation systems. The bill also includes a provision that would establish a "technical data system" that would "track, manage, and enable the assessment" of data related to system maintenance and repair. Unfortunately, the technical data system portion of the NDAA mentions "authorized repair contractors" as the parties carrying out repair work, and there's also no mention of parts availability or other repairability provisions in the sections the staffer flagged -- just access to technical data. That means the provisions are unlikely to move the armed forces toward a new repairability paradigm.
Re: That's right (Score:1)
The term is featherbedding.
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Nope. This is called "Copyright law", and IP.
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In fact, they have guns, and could theoretically take them out and threaten to shoot the salesmen as traitors to the country when they mention requiring repairs to be done by the vendor.
No, the military cannot take a US citizen out and threaten to shoot them as a traitor.
That would involve a lot of people going to jail.
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Serious question, who would stop them?
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If you are asking who would stop them if they decided to overthrow lawful authorities? That's a different, and frankly stupid question.
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It has been very clear the last year that if you are rich enough or have enough political power there is nothing the legal system can do to stop you. If the supreme court tells a branch of government to do someting and they ignore it, who enforces that? Because from what I've seen in the last year you can easily ignore the judges and police if you are the people in political power.
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The political situation in the US is pretty fucked at the moment, but court tolerance of the shooting of civilians is the lowest it has ever been.
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but court tolerance of the shooting of civilians is the lowest it has ever been.
I was nodding along with the thrust of your comments until I hit this gem that I quoted. Civilians are being shot by police all the time. Sometimes, there are repercussions, most of the time, there is not. ICE agents have not been prosecuted even once and are completely above the law. Anything they do can not be reviewed.
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ICE agents have not been prosecuted even once and are completely above the law. Anything they do can not be reviewed.
That is simply untrue.
Their actions are completely open to review.
It is true that they are protected in the case that they are "doing their job in good faith".
If they are not, they are wide open to State prosecution.
This has always been the case for police brutality- the difference between now and then, is that courts grant that protection (accept the good faith argument) less and less.
It is simply a fact that court tolerance of police shooting civilians is the lowest it has ever been.
Brutality at t
Re: Does not require the pentagon to sign up for i (Score:2)
If the supreme court tells a branch of government to do someting and they ignore it, who enforces that?
They've never had that power to begin with. The executive brings both prosecution AND enforcement. The job of the courts is to interpret the laws. They can issue an injunction, but they do not and never have enforced it. The executive has the explicit power to commute and pardon, thus nullifying injunctions. However, the legislative has the power of impeachment.
It has always been like this. You'd know this if you had ever bothered finish middle school, rsilvergun.
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You're undeniably right that the pardon power definitely makes it so that consequences of ignoring an injunction are nil, I personally wouldn't test it to too much extent. It's basically a constitutional crisis. If the Supreme Court considers an injunction legal, then it is, by definition, legal. If the President ignores this, he is, by definition, a criminal, and has violated his oath of office. Not saying it can't technically happen- but realistically- it doesn't happen.
There
Re: Does not require the pentagon to sign up for (Score:2)
True, though governors often do.
Checks and balances usually have to come down to a game of rock paper scissors.
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Ask Andrew Jackson about ignoring the Supreme Court sometime. Go ahead, read about it, and see if the moron known as rsilvergun has a point or not.
Re:Does not require the pentagon to sign up for it (Score:4, Funny)
Soldiers who take their oaths seriously, and remember their (mandatory, annual) training on disobeying illegal orders.
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Re: Does not require the pentagon to sign up for i (Score:2)
poeâ(TM)s law, true as ever
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Re:Does not require the pentagon to sign up for it (Score:4, Insightful)
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In fact, they have guns, and could theoretically take them out and threaten to shoot the salesmen as traitors to the country when they mention requiring repairs to be done by the vendor.
No, the military cannot take a US citizen out and threaten to shoot them as a traitor.
That would involve a lot of people going to jail.
8 years ago, I may have agreed with you. Now you literally have a secret police force nabbing US citizens or whoever they don't like off the street and deporting them to a foreign prison without trial.
Your highest offices are openly ignoring the law... what makes you think they'll stop at shooting just one US citizen (and posthumously declaring them a traitor with no evidence after the fact). They're already sticking guns into the faces of preachers. Ironic as a German Preacher named Martin Niemoeller wa
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8 years ago, I may have agreed with you. Now you literally have a secret police force nabbing US citizens or whoever they don't like off the street and deporting them to a foreign prison without trial.
Misleading.
Deportation of someone who does not have a right to be here does not require a trial.
ICE is not secret police. Douche bag police? I'll grant you that.
Your highest offices are openly ignoring the law...
Which law is this, now?
what makes you think they'll stop at shooting just one US citizen (and posthumously declaring them a traitor with no evidence after the fact).
Because the rational parts of my brain still work, unlike yours.
They're already sticking guns into the faces of preachers.
This might come as news to you, but police in the US have been sticking guns in the faces of lots of people for a very long time.
Do preachers get a pass or some shit?
Ironic as a German Preacher named Martin Niemoeller warned us of just this kind of thing 90 odd years ago.
We're quite a ways away from having an SA or Gestapo, comrade.
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You have a president that is openly ignoring the law... I mean trying to ignore or handwave that away must have become very difficult last night as he literally became guilty of piracy.
The only one being misleading here is you... and the only one you're misleading is yourself. You can lie to yourself, just don't expect it to fool anyone else.
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You literally have a police force operating with impunity and immunity grabbing people off the street.
1) That's not true. It's a lie. Why do you have to lie to make your point?
2) We can evaluate it without the lie: Federal police have operated under this set of rules for hundreds of years. This isn't new. Just their target is, and that's what upsets you.
You have a president that is openly ignoring the law... I mean trying to ignore or handwave that away must have become very difficult last night as he literally became guilty of piracy.
What law is that, again?
The only one being misleading here is you... and the only one you're misleading is yourself. You can lie to yourself, just don't expect it to fool anyone else.
And yet, all you provided were claims with not one bit of reasoning or evidence to back them up.
You're a fucking idiot. When someone says, "this country is getting dumber"- you think of all the MAGA fuckers running around rolling co
look at Ukraine battlefield (Score:2)
The Ukraine battlefield is filled with stories of piecemeal drones and all sorts of other tech mashups that would probably violate this "right to repair". Critical tools should be able to be repaired. Two thirds of these businesses won't exist in a couple years and the other third will want to drum up crazy contracts to support legacy hardware. At least put a clause in for abandoned tech or when it's out of warranty etc. So dumb that we let this continue to happen.
Tax payers will get left holding the bag on
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How many drones has it taken the Houthis to hit an Israeli or US target? 1000? More?
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If we start losing a war we will resemble them.
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If we start losing one bad enough, in that it results in mass destruction of our domestic capacity- then ya, I'd agree with that.
That's uhhh, well the end stage of us losing WW3, though.
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Everyone loses World War 3 bro. EVERYONE.
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https://www.timesofisrael.com/... [timesofisrael.com]
Ballistic missile. Not drone.
https://www.newsweek.com/israe... [newsweek.com]
Actually a drone. Notable undetected by air defenses.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/... [timesofisrael.com]
Ballistic missile. Not drone.
https://www.aljazeera.com/tag/... [aljazeera.com]
This page contains 2 references to 1 event, which funny enough is the event in link 2.
So, what you've got here is 1 drone strike. No casualties.
320 drones.
As for their strikes against US targets, we've got 0 successful hits out of 170 drones.
Combined, 1 hit, no casualties, for 490 drones.
So it's not quite 1:1000, but 1:490 is still just as laughable.
You have got to he the laziest fucking at
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The battlefield between two crumbling post-soviet republics has told us that drones and piecemeal mashups have made big materiel almost obsolete. This is about as major a development as can possibly be. War is never going to be the same again.
Because the number of the drones is not important. The survivability of the target, and cost of the drones versus the cost of the target is.
The Houthis beat the US Navy in the Red Sea. The poorest country in the world went against the richest country in the world, and
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The battlefield between two crumbling post-soviet republics has told us that drones and piecemeal mashups have made big materiel almost obsolete.
Not remotely.
It has shown us that 2 parties, with no real ability to strategically stop the other's war effort will devolve into a modern version of trench warfare.
Because the number of the drones is not important. The survivability of the target, and cost of the drones versus the cost of the target is.
Wrong again.
War isn't accounting, and your capacity to build more drones is not limited by money.
The Houthis beat the US Navy in the Red Sea. The poorest country in the world went against the richest country in the world, and came out on top. And all of the US military aid to Ukraine has been at best unable to win the war.
You're a fucking moron.
The Houthis caused no damage, and lost a whole fucking bunch of people in retaliatory strikes. That's what's called a infinity to fucking 1 kill ratio.
If you are saying, "kept losing people and drones until we had to go resu
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You forgot the 2 f18s. One was shot down thinking it was a drone. The other fell into the sea as the carrier maneuvered away from a drone.
Those are not Houthi-caused casualties, so no, I did not forget them.
Mistakes happen, and planes are lost. This is a normal part of operations.
The one shot down was by a cruiser not attached to that CSG. The navy obviously needs to improve its inter-unit communications here, and I'm sure they'll do so.
The one that careened off of the carrier simply was not strapped down. Expensive mistake, but they happen.
So 2 aircraft vs some easily replaceable huts
Who gives a shit about huts and aircrafts? The US can build more F/A-18s than the Houthis can build
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You at least noticed some random Houthis forced a carrier group to retreat and resupply
And no, that is not the definition of retreat.
Withdrawing to resupply does not indicate defeat. Especially if you come back and continue to dish out the nonconsensual missile-up-your-ass sex.
What do you think happens when someone keeps sending drones when you have no drone defense left...
That would be bad. Commanders would lose their commands, that's for sure.
That also didn't happen.
Ships left to resupply well before they ran out of ammunition.
But of course! (Score:1)
What's the point of having a national military if you can't use it to pump taxpayer dollars into corporate coffers?
*scenario*
"Fox company, we'll airdrop a licensed mechanic and a licensed parts salesman onto your position around 0930, as soon as they finish repairing some stuff the enemy captured last year and make their way back to our side of the lines. Division says hold your position as best you can until then -- and remind the riflemen not to use their weapons as clubs, as that will void their warrant
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Corporations are people and also a superior form of person! They deserve the $$$.
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Nice bit of fiction, but here's what actually happened when Sgt. John Basilone fixed a machine gun under fire [wikipedia.org]. The results look a little different, don't they?
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I fixed electronics for Naval Aviation. Without schematics and access to parts, a naval ship with planes/helicopters would be useless about 2 months into a deployment. During my last deployment, we had to do without our Harrier jets because of nonsense like this. I was able to perform depot level maintenance on most of the electronics which allowed most of our birds to continue flying. This law will entirely cripple the US military. The US military does not just sit at home next a depot level maintenance fa
Campaign donations & lobbying (Score:5, Insightful)
...paid off. Our Bribeocracy in action.
Re:Campaign donations & lobbying (Score:4, Insightful)
We are already a Kakistocracy with a side of oligarchy.
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The best government money can buy.
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Not even that. Their price/performance ratio is mediocre due to lack of professionalism.
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That is exactly my point - they take money but they are nevertheless amateurs.
What a bunch (Score:2)
of idiots.
Re: What a bunch (Score:2)
>of idiots
If only that were true. They are very smart at acquiring wealth and influence off the backs of regular, honest folk.
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Do you mean the politicians or the corporations?
yes they do (Score:3)
All they have to do is write it into their procurement contracts.
Shakedown cruise (Score:2)
If lawmakers were serious and believed in the provisions they must have had a good idea in advance what reaction to expect from industry so why have they folded so easily?
I sometimes get the distinct impression lawmakers don't even care and just dangle the threat of promulgating good reasonable provisions just to rake in corrupt political contributions.
Unfortunate; Missing opportunity costs of time (Score:1)
Lots of time, the cost of waiting for the contractor to show up to perform his repair was the constraint.
In times of war, contractor personnel are already 'all hands on deck' without having to travel to off site to perform the repair.
Congress: are you hearing me?
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Help fix the problem here - https://termlimits.com/progres... [termlimits.com]
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If people really have a problem with this, they can stop voting for crooks. When I see 90% reelection rates, I know the voters aren't serious
Interesting. No thoughts at all on whether or not the elections are legitimate. I wonder why that is Mr. Anonymous Coward...
Warfighting capability (Score:2)
Worth noting that this is one of the worst things for warfighters. In any actually intensive peer to peer conflict (i.e. not uncontested death from above a la GWOT), hardware will have a lot of damage and breakages. That must be repaired ASAP in the field.
This is notably how US won war in the pacific against Japan. "Cruiser got hit by a torpedo under B turret, whole bow blew off" didn't mean a dead cruiser or even a write off. It means cruiser gets emergency repairs right on site, then goes to a nearby port
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And now we can't even get shipyard space. The navy has enormous overruns and is massively behind schedule. I'd love to see more yards and drydocks built, but any attempt to do so will get mired in twenty years of environmental lawsuits.
We are not a serious country when it comes to national defense.
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Last three surface combatant projects all failed. Zumlwalt only got three ships done before cancellation and is now tearing out guns for more missiles. LCS is literally being built and almost immediately scrapped, Now Constellation is cancelled after a couple of ships, that were being built before ship design was even done.
The fucked up part is that majority is interested in them succeeding. It gets Navy admirals what they need for tasks, it gives shipyards safe long term maintenance contracts, it gives pol
"despite bipartisan and Pentagon support." (Score:2)
Corruption stifling battle readiness (Score:1)
This congress is owned. This completely stifles field readiness.
In their corruption, they are un-American.
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Certainly something of a jaw dropper for sure. You'd think this would be one point everyone would come together on.
Doesn't bode well for the future.
Does it matter? (Score:2)
Another step to fascism (Score:2)
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As for opposing politicians being the point of failure, it appears that the point of failure was actually the two ranking members of the committee. So, at least the failure is as bipartisan as the measure's support. In a perverse sort of way.
Version control (Score:2)
With legislation, the text just springs into being, and any changes between the original legislation and the final draft that gets voted on are handled...murkily. Someone rewrites a line in the middle of the night, and it's always reported in
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The sticky bit is how it is probably harder to track when much of the process is in committees
Congress is in the pockets of corporations (Score:2)
This is merely further proof that congress doesn't care about the American Military, or America.
A stronger company but a weaker nation (Score:2)
I am guessing none of them have ever had to repair equipment a thousand miles from home in a combat zone. Well, at least the companies are getting wealthier... unfortunately, they will not be able to protect that wealth as the military will fall flat on its face if it can't do field repairs. The USA was nice while it lasted, but it can not last much longer at this rate. I wonder who will buy us or if Israel will use the blackmail it has on all of our leaders to just keep us as a puppet state. Or maybe we w
Help fix the problem - term limits. (Score:2)
It's for their own good. Power corrupts.
Brilliant (Score:2)
I am reminded of early in the invasion of Afghanistan, and early in the invasion and conquest of Iraq, where the major media was reporting that combat troops didn't have enough water to drink, because the outsourced (instead of the Quartermaster Corps) vendors supplying them were "having trouble getting insurance for the people and transport" (going explicitly into a war zone).
Zero reponsibility (Score:2)
So when something mission critical breaks down and the vendor authorized techs refuse to enter a war zone, it's the military personnel who are going to pay the ultimate price for the corporate betrayal.