Caracas Chronicles

A couple of questions spring to mind in the wake of Chávez’s "CESNA Decree", which allows him, discretionally, to "classify" essentially any piece of information, public or private, and ban its publication: 

1-What exactly does Ms. Eva Golinger, who built a reputation out of exploiting the U.S.’s Freedom of Information Act to report on the U.S. government, make of what amounts to Chávez’s Freedom of Disinformation Act? So…are we fully signed up to FODA, Evita? Cuz, viéndeolo bien, con este decreto estamos bem fodidos, chama…

2-On a more operational level, how exactly does CESNA propose to disclose its classification decisions to the broader community without incurring in precisely the crime it is meant to prevent?

Think about it: CESNA is explicitly enabled to classify private information. But how, exactly, are they supposed to proceed if they decide that the information that, say, "la cebolla está carísima" needs to be classified? Will they send a weekly memo to everyone in Venezuela informing them that any information on the high price of onions is henceforth banned and will be punished by a fine and/or imprisonment? If not, how can they move against an old lady at the Mercado de Coche who goes up to a vegetable stand, gets sticker shock, and exclaims to her sewing circle buddy that "ay bendito, la cebolla está carísima!"?

Really, which is it? Are they going to tell us which information is ok to talk about and which is verboten? Or is it that we’re all meant to just presume that some information is banned, some isn’t, without knowing which is which, but knowing we can go to jail for disclosing the forbidden bits, so we just kind of have to guess? 

Fodidos sem vaselina, I tell you…

[Hat-tip: VUS]