Everyone flying should write SSSS on their boarding passes on a predetermined day, too.

While you're at it, retransmit bitcoin transactions that have been slightly altered but that still have valid signatures.

"Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine."

in Civil Disobedience, by Henry David Thoreau, 1849

I'm not trying to be inflammatory:

Would you expect anything else from the US gov't?

Are you trying to be hyperbolic to the point of obliterating all nuance then?

If you accept the article as accurate, then it seems odd to consider my statement hyperbole.

Given the text of the article, which entails only a single incident of a legitimate transaction being stopped based on automatic keyword filtering, we should conclude that it is entirely reasonable to state that the whole US government -- every single branch and agency -- is incapable of carrying out any action competently, at every level all the way to the very top?

Yes, that's a hyperbolic statement.

Ah, so this is the first time you've read about something like this...

>Given the text of the article, which entails only a single incident of a legitimate transaction being stopped

If you're gonna have a say on the issue, then at least not base it just on the singular information of the article. This is a common occurence. Here's another example, posted just a few weeks before:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7240777

And there are many, many more.

>we should conclude that it is entirely reasonable to state that the whole US government -- every single branch and agency -- is incapable of carrying out any action competently, at every level all the way to the very top?

No, who is retorting to hyberbole? Did he say anything about them being incapable to carry out any action competently? IIRC, he wrote: "did you expect anything else" from them, which could be read as related to this particular handling of the situation. Which, as we saw, is not uncommon at all. See also TSA, et al.

> No, who is retorting to hyberbole? Did he say anything about them being incapable to carry out any action competently?

Yes.

> Would you expect anything else from the US gov't?

You're being obtuse to continue this line of pseudo-intellectual reasoning. His statement is quite obviously implying that the government can't do anything right (aww shucks!), and he's using this article as his "evidence."

Must be easy to always argue against the least charitable interpretation of your opponents positions.

You mean every American citizen... except yourself.

I am not one so I can't really do that :P

That's my point. It's easy to advocate something when you have no intention of participating.

That's called American syndrome. "Yea! Let's all stand up to the gov!"... * waits for someone else to do it first

So does it mean that I shouldn't say anything about that issue? Does it mean that you should not support the protesters in Ukraine if you are not Ukrainian, because you have no intention of participating?

Also - this is Hacker News, not Hacker News USA, so if something is important enough that it's brought to the attention of the worldwide population, then that population should be able to voice their opinion on the matter.