Venezuela collapses into food police state!

Biometric scanning into government database now required to purchase food.

CARACAS, Venezuela (PNN) - February 28, 2016 - It was nicknamed the "Fingerprints for Food" program, but it represented a dire new twist in the ongoing struggle for the socialist Venezuelan government to provide basic nourishment and products for its citizens. In May 2014, President Nicolas Maduro ordered the implementation of biometrics to allow the government to track what customers of state-owned grocery stores were purchasing and, perhaps as importantly, how much.

Maduro said that the measure was necessary to prevent hoarding, and to help keep price-controlled food from being resold at a profit. Even then, food was increasingly in short supply, and that was before global oil prices collapsed due to a glut; Venezuela receives 95% of its revenues from oil.

In order to convince hungry Venezuelans to voluntarily register for the program, Food Minister Felix Osorio promised that anyone who signed up and gave the government their fingerprints would be eligible for discounts and prizes.

The scheme was not made mandatory when it was first implemented, but critics warned that it would become just another way for the state to keep tabs on its people, and could even serve as a precursor to rationing.

The program came amid some of the worst inflation suffered by Venezuela at the time (it has only gotten worse since).

"This is a government that attacks the people not only with weapons but with the worst tax inflation," Luis Florido, a national officer of the Voluntad Popular opposition Party, said at the time. "The government is creating economic [chaos] for the people of Venezuela."

In January 2015, food shortages had become so commonplace in Venezuela that consumers were forced to wait for hours in food lines, with many opting to sleep in line so as not to lose their place.

In addition, Maduro was also forced to deploy the Venezuelan army to keep peace and ensure social stability at state-run stores.

By August of last year things had not improved much. Violence permeated the country, punctuated by the torching of a National Guard command post that was set aflame by a mob infuriated by worsening food shortages. After they burned the command post they rammed trucks into the smoldering ruins, reducing it to a pile of rubble.

That incident was just one of many throughout the country, mostly brought on by chronic shortages of basic foods, goods and products.

"What's certain is that we are going very hungry here and the children are suffering a lot," said Maria Palma, a 55-year-old grandmother. On that day she had awakened at 3:00 a.m. to go stand in a food store line, which she finally abandoned around noon - empty-handed.

One non-profit group recorded more than 500 instances of violent protests throughout Venezuela, along with 56 instances of looting, and scores of attempted lootings of grocery stores, pharmacies and warehouses - all in the first half of 2015. Even delivery trucks were targeted.

"It's a national crisis," said Marco Ponce, head of the Venezuela Observatory of Social Conflict, the non-profit group that did the study.