This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Saturday, August 8, 2020.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Task forces led by the federal government mean local authorities effectively

turning over their police to federal agencies, and in doing so cops deputized as federal agents follow a different set of rules, and that can mean less accountability to local authority.

Simone Weish-O-Bam is a staff writer at the Marshall... mean less accountability to local authority.

Simone Weish-O-Bam is a staff writer at the Marshall Project,

who covers federal task forces.

Patrick Giacomo is an attorney at the Institute for Justice.

He represents James King in the case of Brownback the King. The case

currently slated to be heard by the US Supreme Court next term.

Simone, I'm going to start with you. When the feds come into a locality and they have some we'll say it's a legitimate

crime issue that they're they're dealing with what is that relationship like between the feds and local cops and to what extent are

local cops? What extent do they become feds?

So what usually happens is twofold.

So first you would have like a short-term partnership,

which you usually see with the U.S. Marshals Task Force,

where sometimes they'll come in for 90 days, six months, deputize local police

officers assigned to that task force, and usually they go after fugitives.

What's really interesting about this is that the U.S. Marshals and the FBI can go after local

fugitive so people often ask like hey you know why are the marshals kicking down the

door of a guy wanted you know breaking into my neighbor's house. Well sometimes police departments and some argue they don't really have much going on and they have this task force.

They may assign you know the house break in the serial carjacker to the US marshals which will come down, kick down your door, and oftentimes

...