>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 i

>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.