Chavez announces internet cutback

Even though President Hugo Chavez initially supported internet, with the enactment of a Presidential Decree in the year 2000 whereby internet was declared a national priority, today he has grown scare of its effects. Now Chavez has recently announced that the internet is a "luxury and must be eliminated from public spenditure". This is just an effort to curtail freedom of expression.

Now, this is just the beginning of the regulation of the internet. The obvious first step is to eliminate public offices and officials from accessing the net, then it will obvious that the regulation must reach private individuals, which mostly feed the internet with not so-Chavez friendly messages. Or better off, without the Chavez government directly or indirectly regulating the content of the internet on Venezuela. This is just a product of Chavez´s frustration with his lack of jurisdiction to regulate the content on internet.

In my opinion, this will slowly transform into the regulation of internet for private individuals (and maybe to yours truly, this humble blogger). Maybe Chavez will outright ban the access to internet to everyone, or either regulate the connection frequency times or perhaps issue a government clearence to whom could access the net.

The days of internet accesss in Venezuela are counted...