Following the capture of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) on March 1, 2003, he was subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques. These led to information that allowed for the capture of other terrorists. Then-CIA Director George Tenet wrote: “I believe that none of these successes would have happened if we had had to treat KSM like a white-collar criminal–read him his Miranda rights and get him a lawyer who surely would have insisted that his client simply shut up. In his initial interrogation by CIA officers, KSM was defiant. ‘I’ll talk to you guys,’ he said, ‘after I get to New York and see my lawyer.’ Apparently he thought he would be immediately shipped to the United States and indicted in the Southern District of New York. Had that happened, I am confident that we would have obtained none of the information he had in his head about imminent threats against the American people.”
– George Tenet with Bill Harlow, At the Center of the Storm, Page 255