SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Questioning of Ter-
rorism Suspects Act of 2010’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
The Congress finds the following: 
(1) The United States Supreme Court, in New 
York v. Quarles, 467 U.S. 649 (1984), determined 
that there is an exception to the constitutional re-
quirement for what are commonly called Miranda 
warnings in situations posing a threat to public safe-
ty. 
(2) Terrorist plots have often consisted of co-
ordinated attacks on multiple targets. 
(3) Captured terrorists may be the best and 
sometimes only source of intelligence necessary to 
prevent pending or planned attacks. 
(4) The initial hours and days after capture are 
often the most valuable from an intelligence collec-
tion perspective. Due to the complexity of terrorist 
plots, an extended interview may be necessary to 
procure the information necessary to protect the 
public from a pending or planned attack. 
(5) Just as courts have held that the public 
safety exception established in Quarles exists even 
when questioning is designed solely to protect the 
lives of police officers, the public safety exception in 
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the terrorism context is broad enough to include 
questioning necessary to protect the lives of troops 
on the battlefield from a pending or planned attack. 
(6) Given the nature of international terrorism 
investigations, it is often necessary to question cap-
tured terrorists overseas in cooperation with other 
countries. 
(7) In many cases, the full warnings set out in 
Miranda cannot be provided to terrorism suspects in 
foreign custody, since the rights referenced in Mi-
randa may not be available to the individual in that 
particular country. 
SEC. 3. PUBLIC SAFETY EXCEPTION TO MIRANDA RULE IN 
TERRORISM INVESTIGATIONS. 
It is the sense of Congress that the public safety ex-
ception to the constitutional requirement for what are 
commonly called Miranda warnings allows unwarned inter-
rogation of terrorism suspects for as long as is necessary 
to protect the public from pending or planned attacks 
when a significant purpose of the interrogation is to gath-
er intelligence and not solely to elicit testimonial evidence. 
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SEC. 4. ADMISSIBILITY OF CERTAIN CONFESSIONS MADE 
DURING TERRORISM INVESTIGATIONS. 
(a) INTELLIGENCE GATHERING TO PROTECT THE 
PUBLIC SAFETY.—Section 3501 of title 18, United States 
Code, is amended by adding at the end the following: 
‘‘(f)(1)(A) In the case of an individual who is a ter-
rorism suspect, upon ex parte application made by the 
Government within 6 hours immediately following the per-
son’s arrest or other detention, that individual may be 
taken before a magistrate not later than 48 hours after 
arrest or other detention and any confession made within 
those 48 hours shall not be considered inadmissible solely 
because the individual was not presented to a magistrate 
earlier. 
‘‘(B) Such an application must contain a certification 
by the Attorney General or the Deputy Attorney General, 
and the Director of National Intelligence or the Principal 
Deputy Director of National Intelligence, that— 
‘‘(i) the individual with respect to whom the ap-
plication is made is a terrorism suspect; and 
‘‘(ii) the individual may be able to provide intel-
ligence necessary to protect the public safety. 
‘‘(C) Upon ex parte application, the appropriate judi-
cial officer shall, for good cause shown and subject to such 
conditions as that officer may prescribe, extend the time 
limitation provided by this subsection for an additional 48 
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hours. Such application may be filed in camera and the 
court’s order shall be subject to interlocutory appeal. 
‘‘(2) As used in this subsection, the term ‘terrorism 
suspect’ means a person suspected of international ter-
rorism or domestic terrorism as those terms are defined 
in section 2331.’’. 
(b) OVERSEAS TERRORISM INVESTIGATIONS.—It is 
the sense of Congress that a confession given during over-
seas questioning of a terrorism suspect in foreign custody 
shall not be rendered inadmissible for failure to provide 
Miranda warnings, if such confession was voluntarily given 
and reliable. 
Æ 
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