FED INTEL IS THE SLIPPERY SLOPE

To the Editor:

The Sunday, Dec. 18 editorial is a second UDJ editorial expressing
"disappointment but not surprise" at two members of the Board of
Supervisors voicing sentiments related to the annual
federal/state/local operations eradicating grows on expansive public
lands in our region. First, in an earlier piece this year that also
seemed to be a voicing of phony "disappointment but not surprise,"
the UDJ chided Dan Hamburg and John McCowen for commenting that these
annual operations would likely not be necessary if we had federal
legalization and regulation of marijuana. Now Dan Hamburg and John
Pinches are under fire for not supporting Congressman Mike Thompson's
"logical and necessary notion of allowing the federal government to
use its superior intelligence apparatus to locate pot fields in the
Mendocino National Forest....(and that Hamburg and Pinches) act like
federal agents are ready to camp out in their own back yards."

Not only does incorporating military and intelligence assets
represent a slippery slope due to the current maintenance of a
separation between those sectors and local law enforcement
jurisdictions, using these assets are additionally not needed at all
to detect and eradicate grow sites. What they have already been using
and doing has been fully effective.

Week after week of watching the Supervisor meetings on channel 65 has
been made interesting and enjoyable for me largely because Hamburg,
Pinches, and McCowen do a lot of questioning and digging in their own
unique ways and I have seen the auto pilot voting on some agenda
items disrupted, with good results.

Mike Jamieson

Ukiah