The High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group (HIG) is a U.S. three-agency

intelligence-gathering This is a list of intelligence gathering disciplines. HUMINT Human intelligence (HUMINT) are gathered from a person in the location in question. Sources can include the following: * Advisors or foreign internal defense (FID) personnel wor ...

entity that brings together

intelligence Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. More generally, it can be des ...

professionals from the

Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, ...

(FBI), the

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

(CIA), and the

United States Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national sec ...

(DoD). It is administratively housed within the FBI's

National Security Branch The National Security Branch (NSB) is a service within the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The NSB is responsible for protecting the United States from weapons of mass destruction, acts of terrorism, and foreign intelligence operations and e ...

. The HIG was created by

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university * President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...

in August 2009 with its charter written in April 2010. It was established to question

terrorism Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...

suspects soon after their arrests, to quickly obtain information about accomplices and terrorism threats. The group was to be responsible for interrogations overseas. In January 2010, the Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair said that the group would begin interrogating people in the U.S. as well. The HIG claims to use authorized, lawful, non-coercive techniques and conducts research on the effectiveness of interrogation techniques and provides training for their interrogators, other U.S. Intelligence Community and law enforcement partners and allies abroad. The HIG is administered by the FBI. The Director of the HIG is an FBI representative with two deputies, one from the DoD and the other from the CIA. The HIG is subject to oversight by the National Security Council, the

Department of Justice A justice ministry, ministry of justice, or department of justice is a ministry or other government agency in charge of the administration of justice. The ministry or department is often headed by a minister of justice (minister for justice in a ...

, and by

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...

. The group's creation stopped a bureaucratic war between the CIA and the FBI over who had responsibility for interrogations. HIG questioned

Faisal Shahzad Faisal Shahzad ( ur, ; born , 1979) is a Pakistani-American citizen who was arrested for the attempted May 1, 2010, Times Square car bombing. On , 2010, in Federal District Court in Manhattan, he confessed to 10 counts arising from the b ...

, a Pakistani-American citizen responsible for the

2010 Times Square car bombing attempt On May 1, 2010, a terrorist attack was attempted in Times Square in Manhattan, New York. Two street vendors alerted NYPD after they spotted smoke coming from a vehicle, and a car bomb was discovered. The bomb had been ignited, but failed to exp ...

Boston Marathon bombing The Boston Marathon bombing was a domestic terrorist attack that took place during the annual Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013. Two terrorists, brothers Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, planted two homemade pressure cooker bombs, w ...

suspect

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Dzhokhar "Jahar" Anzorovich Tsarnaev born July 22, 1993)russian: Джоха́р Анзо́рович Царна́ев, link=no ; ce, Царнаев Анзор-кIант ДжовхӀар o; ( Kyrgyz language, Kyrgyz: Жохар Анзор уу� ...

, and Benghazi terror suspect

Ahmed Abu Khattala Ahmed Salim Faraj Abu Khattala (born May 7, 1971) is an incarcerated Libyan, who commanded a small militia during the 2011 uprising against Qaddafi. He participated in the 2012 Benghazi attack on the American diplomatic mission at Benghazi, in whic ...

References

Interrogations Federal Bureau of Investigation Terrorism in the United States {{US-gov-stub