You could make a case for everyone being bumbling and third-rate today. Post an edge case and have a lack of information to counter. I think by not addressing concerns head on gov't agencies are inviting for this type of behavior. I don't agree that stating that you have white labs as a defense for possibly tainted equipment is a full answer. I assume there is more coming since having a white lab test of equipment would be unreasonable for every piece of equipment due to workload. Not testing every piece of equipment to be used isn't a solution either since if Huawei is "evil" then they will just taint the box going to the correct provider.

While I don't agree with this approach I can see why it happens. For example I have a smattering of news articles to prove incompetency. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/nwt-health-data-breach-... https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/forget-spy-case-where-s-brief... and a bunch of professionals in what amount to a twitter war.

If the Canadian government doesn't want people talking negatively about them then there needs to be more transparency. Not to the level of risking a breach, but something along the lines of a list of safeguards they are implementing. I wouldn't ever consider one safeguard a solution. If somebody feels the need to call out where the information is, I would legitimately like to read it.

Alright, which government institutions worldwide are not "bumbling and third-rate"?

I am a fan of NIST. They seem to be pushing forward with less than average amount of bureaucracy. By definition everything should be public and they don't have any responsiblity for enforcement of the rules which might be a slow pitch to your question.

Drawing from my roots the Canada Wheat board was always surrounded by heated arguments and controversal decisions. There was the UN wheat scandal but that is more a matter of if you believe they are evil and not their level of incompetancy. They received a significant amount of name calling due to their decisions and policies, but I can't recall any significant missteps in their application of the policies they set out to act upon.

Does anyone have way to a prove software is bug free? Familiar with the halting problem? I think that is the crux of the argument here. Testing does not solve the problem.

Like the possible states that hardware and software have can be enormous that only the simplest of devices can be exhaustively tested.

That argument could be applied to the U.S. government's ability to test software and hardware, and also the software and hardware produced by companies other than Huawei and countries other than China.

hence why I said does “anyone”.