Colorado just passed a landmark right-to-repair law, and now tech giants are scrambling to water it down before it actually takes effect. Companies like IBM and Cisco are throwing around some seriously vague language to carve out massive loopholes that would basically negate the whole point of the legislation.

Here’s what’s going down: IBM claims it supports right-to-repair policies, but with a catch. The company says any law needs to protect something called “critical infrastructure”, which sounds important until you actually look at what that means. Cisco is taking a similar approach, arguing that not all digital devices are equal and implying that some should be exempt from repair rights.

The problem is that “critical infrastructure” is intentionally undefined in Colorado’s bill, which gives these companies plenty of room to argue that almost anything falls under that umbrella. Nathan Proctor, who leads the right-to-repair campaign at Pirg, isn’t buying it. “It sounds scary to lawmakers, but it just means the internet”, he says about the vague language tech companies are using.

Repair advocates showed up in force during the recent hearing to call out this corporate BS. YouTuber Louis Rossmann, who’s built a massive platform talking about repair rights, was there alongside organizations like iFixit and the Repair Association. They all made the same point: the bill’s language is deliberately murky, and tech companies are exploiting that murkiness to maintain their stranglehold on repairs.

Gay Gordon-Byrne, the executive director of the Repair Association, didn’t mince words during the hearing. She pointed out at least five problems with how the bill is currently drafted, starting with the fact that the definition of “critical infrastructure” is basically nonsense. The bill borrows language from a 2001 federal law that defines critical infrastructure as systems so vital their failure would wreck national security or the economy. That’s not the same thing as your iPhone or laptop, but tech companies are counting on lawmakers not knowing the difference.

The whole situation exposes how corporations operate when they feel threatened. Rather than openly fighting right-to-repair efforts, they’re using regulatory language and fear-mongering about security and infrastructure to create loopholes big enough to drive a truck through. They’re banking on the fact that most people won’t dig deep enough to realize they’re being played.

If Colorado’s law gets gutted by these corporate amendments, it sets a terrible precedent for other states considering similar legislation. The fight for the right to fix our own devices is far from over, and right now, the tech industry is pulling out all the stops to make sure we lose.