Remember a couple of months ago when we told you that Rep. Mike Thompson was pushing for federal intelligence agencies to get involved in the War Against Marijuana Growing on Public Land? Well, that just got signed into law. 

So the next thing that happens is that the DEA, the CIA, the INS, the FBI, the NSA and etc., etc. will be putting forward pitches about why they need to get involved in the game. The grounds are that federal lands — national parks, forests and Bureau of Land Management land — are being taken over by “foreign drug traffickers.” Cartels, one presumes. So it’s a national security threat now.

So things do get kind of nasty way out there in the hills, as this year’s raids proved, and once against the Humboldt County mom and pop grower will be the primary beneficiary of this federal price-control scheme. We’d be more stoked if, with the other hand, the feds weren’t busting all the good guys.

Press release follows:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congressman Mike Thompson’s (D-CA) provisions to H.R. 1892, the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 were signed into law today by President Barack Obama. The legislation included two bipartisan provisions authored by Thompson, a senior member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

The first provision requires the Intelligence Community to compile a threat assessment of foreign drug traffickers that are increasingly turning to public lands in the United States to further their operations.  This assessment will examine the ability of law enforcement and the intelligence community to gather, process, and share critical intelligence information regarding the presence of foreign drug traffickers on federal public lands.

“Foreign drug traffickers and their illegal grow sites are threatening lives and destroying our public lands,” said Thompson. “Our law enforcement and intelligence community’s response to this threat must be coordinated and unified in order to take our public lands back from these illegal activities, and that’s what my provision in this bill requires.”

“Having required threat assessments helps to identify resource allocations to enhanced law enforcement’s ability to disrupt and dismantle drug trafficking organizations’ lucrative businesses in narcotics production and distribution,” said Tommy Lanier, Director of the National Marijuana Initiative. “For many years, drug trafficking organizations have invaded our national icons for the purpose of producing marijuana which poses a threat to the public and employees.  Threat assessments will help to support public lands agencies in developing strategies to disrupt and dismantle these drug trafficking organizations thus supporting the mission in combating illegal drug production, distribution and demand.”

Should this threat assessment identify any gaps or inefficiencies in the sharing of this information, this provision will require that these issues be corrected.  Importantly, this provision does not authorize the use of any of the intelligence community’s resources or assets to spy on U.S. citizens. 

The second provision to H.R. 1892 authored by Thompson requires the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to provide Congress with a full and classified report on the events surrounding the May 2011 Osama bin Laden raid. The report will include a description of the events leading up to the discovery of the location of Osama bin Laden, the planning and execution of the raid, and the results of the intelligence gained from the raid for the purposes of establishing a permanent account of this historic operation.  A final copy of this report, including intelligence information and assessments used to generate this report will then be housed at the Center for the Study of Intelligence, based at the CIA. Thompson authored this provision with the help of Congresswoman Anna Eshoo (CA-14).

“It is necessary that we know and never forget what actually happened in the bin Laden raid,” said Thompson.  “We must recognize the amazing contributions of our intelligence community to this historic success, and that is why we need to document and preserve all that went into this operation, so that in the future, our history books will be accurate and complete.”

H.R. 1892 was agreed to by unanimous consent by the United States Senate on December 14, 2011, and was later passed by a vote of 396-23 by the United States House of Representatives on December 16, 2011.