> Inter-agency task forces have become common in American law enforcement since 9/11.
Still, you call for a Cambridge detective, the Secret Service also shows up, and that doesn't cause major head scratching? I wish the summary had expanded on that part.
FD: I'm an alum.
Edit: From the report:
For the same reasons, the MIT Police sought
forensic assistance from a detective in the Cambridge Police Department who
had expertise in computer crime and with whom they had worked repeatedly
in the past. The Cambridge detective, who was a member of the New England
Electronic Crimes Task Force, responded to the call, accompanied by an agent
of the U.S. Secret Service. While the inclusion of the Secret Service agent was
not the intention of MIT, it was a recognized possibility. It was not until a
few days later, when Aaron Swartz was arrested, that MIT learned the identity
of the person involved in the JSTOR downloading. Thus, we find that MIT
did not focus on Aaron Swartz at any time during its own investigation of the
events that led to his arrest, and that MIT did not intentionally “call in the
feds” to take over the investigation.
So it wasn't MIT's intention to "hand it over to the feds" but it was indeed a recognized possibility that the feds would get involved when the request was made.
The summary would be improved if that were included.
>Still, you call for a Cambridge detective, the Secret Service also shows up, and that doesn't cause major head scratching?
No. If something similar happened in Boston and you called BPD, you'd probably get a BPD detective that does burglaries for the break in and a BPD detective that does computer crimes for the laptop - someone like my friend (who is a Boston PD detective that has an "extra" Secret Service credential by way of his assignment to the New England Electronic Crimes Task Force).
The New England Electronic Crimes Task Force is funded and run by the Secret Service. My understanding is that is primarily for jurisdictional reasons. But, it is also because way back in the day (300baud dail-up era) the majority of computer crime was related to the anti-counter fitting mandate that Secret Service has (like fake credit cards, fake vital documents, and fake currency). Computer crime was a new thing and most people didn't have PC's yet (or computer skills) so there wasn't an agency that was a great fit. The FBI didn't want it. So, in many places Secret Service got it.
Any computer crime in Mass is will almost always have Secret Service involved. New Hampshire and Maine are a little different. They have their own state level task forces/labs. So, any computer crime there will almost always have the State Police involved. The Secret Service involvement in Mass. is like the State Police involvement in those states. It's not an escalation. It's just a matter of where the resources (people with comp. forensic training and equipment) were developed and are located.
No, it doesn't cause head scratching. You called the police because you need computer forensics expertise while investigating a crime. The local cops show up with extra computer forensics experts who are also law enforcement. Not a big deal.
Still, you call for a Cambridge detective, the Secret Service also shows up, and that doesn't cause major head scratching? I wish the summary had expanded on that part.
FD: I'm an alum.
Edit: From the report:
For the same reasons, the MIT Police sought forensic assistance from a detective in the Cambridge Police Department who had expertise in computer crime and with whom they had worked repeatedly in the past. The Cambridge detective, who was a member of the New England Electronic Crimes Task Force, responded to the call, accompanied by an agent of the U.S. Secret Service. While the inclusion of the Secret Service agent was not the intention of MIT, it was a recognized possibility. It was not until a few days later, when Aaron Swartz was arrested, that MIT learned the identity of the person involved in the JSTOR downloading. Thus, we find that MIT did not focus on Aaron Swartz at any time during its own investigation of the events that led to his arrest, and that MIT did not intentionally “call in the feds” to take over the investigation.
So it wasn't MIT's intention to "hand it over to the feds" but it was indeed a recognized possibility that the feds would get involved when the request was made.
The summary would be improved if that were included.