History Main / EnhancedInterrogationTechniques

* ''Series/AlexRider'': Shortly after agreeing to work for Blunt, Alex is kidnapped by a paramilitary group who interrogates him about his uncle's work and Point Blanc. When he doesn't answer, he's subjected to bright lights and very loud death metal, being soaked, and [[ShameIfSomethingHappened threats to his loved ones]]. [[spoiler: He escapes, and the whole thing turns out to be a SecretTestOfCharacter by Blunt.]] It actually leaves him well-prepared to resist another interrogation later when Dr. Greif finds out he's a spy and subjects him to TruthSerum.

* It's a recurring point in ''Series/BurnNotice'' that physical torture doesn't work. The show mentions, and even sometimes uses, "non-violent" methods that ''do'' break someone such as prolonged isolation, being subjected to loud noise for long periods of time, sleep deprivation, etc. In the end, most of those methods take too long, so Michael devises clever ways to make a target either trust them or become completely terrified of them, usually without ever laying a hand on the subject. (For example, in one case Sam breaks a con artist by cutting ''himself'' open, dripping the blood all over the con artist, all while talking about what he'll do to the guy. It completely freaks the con artist out. As the narration puts it, at that point, the thought process of the person being interrogated goes "If he's willing to do that to himself, what is he going to do to ''me?!"'')
** In the episode "Do No Harm", Michael throws one uncooperative captive out of a window to convince another one to talk. Unbeknownst to his partner, the first guy is perfectly safe -- he was attached to a wire and hauled in through the window below.

* As the setting runs on BlackAndGreyMorality, the ''Website/SCPFoundation'' engages in this regularly and often uses their more psychologically-taxing artifacts to aid in this endeavor. One example is [[https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-136 SCP-136]], a CreepyDoll that summons a StringyHairedGhostGirl to terrorize anyone who looks at it too long. After said ghost starts killing people, its head researcher begs his superiors to let him find a way to destroy it [[IgnoredExpert but is denied]] as it proved a valuable torture device. A more horrifying example from the Russian branch of the site is [[https://scpfoundation.net/scp-1007-ru SCP-1007-RU]], an AgonyBeam virus that causes incomprehensible amounts of pain without killing its victim, which is also weaponized.

* Shows up in ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' of all shows. In "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS1E25PartyOfOne Party of One]]", [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} Pinkie Pie]] goes insane when she thinks her friends ditched her party because they hate her. She lures Spike into her house/lair with gems and then interrogates him as brutally as an E/I show for kids will allow. Her pet gator grabs his tail to keep him from escaping, she shines a bright lamp on him in a pitch-black room, and eventually, she starts screaming at him and giving him a DeathGlare while demanding that he confess. Spike (who had no idea what a PerpSweat was in the first place) is so freaked out that he starts confessing random things. Finally, Pinkie Pie snaps and demands that he confirm her suspicions that her friends hate her. Spike has no idea what she is talking about but confirms it anyway to get her to back off.

->'''Fisher''': Pick a number between one and ten.\\
'''Mook''': Oh crap! Uh... three!\\
'''Fisher''': Lucky guess. You get to live. ''Now tell me something useful or we'll play another round.''

* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'' Batman used a [[EvilMinions minion's]] phobia about germs to extract information by threatening to drop a jar containing a liquid culture of a disease on the minion's head. It was a bluff, the jar merely containing a sample of completely ordinary seawater, but the fear it caused was as real as if the jar actually had contained deadly germs.
* In ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'' (with a crossover with ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond'') the elderly Bruce Wayne pulls the captive Ghoul away from Batman (his younger self), who had been dangling the villain over the side of a building. "I can't believe I was ever that green," he scoffs. "''This'' is how you interrogate someone." Wayne hefts his cane and advances toward Ghoul. One fade-to-black later, the villain has confessed not only to the organization and capabilities of the Jokerz but to being a bed-wetter until he was fourteen.

* Shows up in ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' of all shows. In "Party of One", [[CloudCuckoolander Pinkie Pie]] goes insane when she thinks her friends ditched her party because they hate her. She lures Spike into her house/lair with gems and then interrogates him as brutally as an E/I show for kids will allow. Her pet gator grabs his tail to keep him from escaping, she shines a bright lamp on him in a pitch-black room, and eventually, she starts screaming at him and giving him a DeathGlare while demanding that he confess. Spike (who had no idea what a PerpSweat was in the first place) is so freaked out that he starts confessing random things. Finally, Pinkie Pie snaps and demands that he confirm her suspicions that her friends hate her. Spike has no idea what she is talking about but confirms it anyway to get her to back off.
* In ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls1998'', the people of Townsville get [[TheCollector Lenny Baxter]] [[InterrogationByVandalism to reveal where he has the girls by causing him to faint from the sight of kids removing the packaging from his collectibles.]]

* In ''Film/TheDarkKnight'', Harvey captures Thomas Schiff, one of the Honor Guard the Joker hired to help kill the Mayor, after seeing him wearing a nameplate that reads Rachel Dawes. He takes Schiff to an alley, ties him to a chair, shoots a gun into a nearby dumpster to prove he isn't joking and flips a coin. Tails and Schiff would die if Schiff didn't start talking. [[spoiler:The coin was double-headed.]]

* The first four ''VideoGame/{{Splinter Cell}}s'' are infamous for Sam's [[BlackComedy wacky torture sequences]], the majority of which involve him psyching out mooks. Holding them at knife- or gun-point, he then gets information by more psychological means; for example, in ''[[VideoGame/SplinterCellChaosTheory Chaos Theory]]'', he reminds a mook [[DestinationDefenestration they're on the 60th floor]], before claiming [[MookHorrorShow you're conscious right until you hit the concrete.]]

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* In ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls'', the people of Townsville get [[TheCollector Lenny Baxter]] [[InterrogationByVandalism to reveal where he has the girls by causing him to faint from the sight of kids removing the packaging from his collectibles.]]

Named for the euphemism used by both the U.S. Government for forms of torture that don't leave marks or cause organ failure, and for ''Verschärfte Vernehmung'', [[GodwinsLaw which is what the Nazis called it when they did it and which translates to about the same]]. Compare JackBauerInterrogationTechnique, InterrogationByVandalism, and TortureAlwaysWorks. See also WeHaveWaysOfMakingYouTalk, MaximumFunChamber.

* In an issue of Secret Avengers, Hill threatens to waterboard a terrorist. When he says that it would be torture, she replies:

* In ''Film/TheDarkKnight'', Harvey captures Thomas Schiff, one of the Honor Guard the Joker hired to help kill the Mayor, after seeing him wearing a nameplate that reads Rachel Dawes. He takes Schiff to an alley, ties him to a chair, shoots a gun into a nearby dumpster to prove he isn't joking and flips a coin. Tails and Schiff would die if Schiff didn't start talking. [[spoiler:The coin was double-headed.]]
* Zigzagged in ''Film/DickTracy''. When Tracy interrogates Mumbles, he tempts him with water drawn from a fancy cooler, knowing that Mumbles is thirsty. Eventually, Mumbles blurts out something that seems as incomprehensible as anything else he says, but Tracy accepts that as a statement. ''Much'' later in the film, after Tracy has been framed for murder, he again confronts Mumbles with the water cooler, which had a recorder hidden inside; he's then able to slow down the recording to get Mumbles' clearly heard confession, fingering Big Boy Caprice in Lips Manlis' murder. (This would have been inadmissible evidence the first time, but now that Tracy is himself under arrest and doing this without a superior's knowledge, he is able to find out who set him up by threatening to let Big Boy hear it.)

* In ''Literature/AGiftFromEarth'', by Creator/LarryNiven, the authorities don't use physical torture because it would ruin the suspect's use of the body banks. Instead, they use sensory deprivation.
* In Patrick Robinson's ''USS Seawolf'', [[UsefulNotes/ChineseWithChopperSupport PLA soldiers]] resort to, among other things, beating TheCaptain and waterboarding his [[NumberTwo executive officer]] [[spoiler:(who happens to be the President's son)]] to elicit info on the titular submarine.

* Although he doesn't use the precise term "enhanced interrogation techniques", the trope is used in a definite DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything way by Thomas Cromwell in Literature/WolfHall. Cromwell eschews torture for both [[EvenEvilHasStandards moral]] and [[PragmaticVillainy pragmatic]] reasons, but his preferred methods of eliciting confessions both true and false involve the use of sleep and food deprivation, placing someone in a dark room and exposing them to unfamiliar lights and sounds, and (usually implicit) threats of ColdBloodedTorture. The text heavily suggests that these methods are not at all morally superior to physical torture and that Cromwell knows this, but is in denial.
* ''Literature/GhostsOfTomorrow'': When Griffin interrogates Riina in virtual reality, he has the system administrator turn up Riina's perceptions so high that he can't even move without feeling like his clothes are scraping his skin off, then turn off his ability to pass out, dissociate, try to escape, or even have facial expressions. Then he threatens to grab Riina's hand and squeeze as hard as he can. Riina quickly tells him everything he wants to know.

* In ''VideoGame/XCOMEnemyUnknown'', you are allowed, and even required, to interrogate captured aliens. The reports from the lab division make it clear the "interrogated" aliens don't survive the process. One of the characters later comments that he's shocked that [[BewareTheNiceOnes the seemingly-benign Dr. Vahlen would go to these lengths]] (though everyone admits that, ghoulish and inhumane though the methods may be, they are necessary for the face of possible extinction). Although it's stated that the interrogations are less a series of questions but more forcing electrodes into its brain to administer painful stimulation for the purpose of reading the alien's brain waves since the invaders either can't or won't talk.
** This was also present but obfuscated in the original game, ''VideoGame/XCOMUFODefense'': the interrogations reveal information about the alien plans and society, as well as giving you information on the alien species you just interrogated that you can't get from an autopsy, but never mentions what happens to the alien you questioned. However, your general stores will show that you now have one more alien corpse than you did before.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Homeworld}}'', the cutscene for the third mission describes the results of an interrogation of a Taiidan frigate captain, captured in the orbit of the destroyed Kharak. After revealing to the player the information gleaned from the interrogation, the voiceover calmly states that the officer did not survive the interrogation. Considering that the Kushans have just witnessed their planet's destruction at the hands of the Taiidan, the outcome of the interrogation is understandable.

* In ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'' (with a crossover with ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond'') the elderly Bruce Wayne pulls the captive Ghoul away from Batman (his younger self), who had been dangling the villain over the side of a building. "I can't believe I was ever that green," he scoffs. "''This'' is how you interrogate someone." Wayne hefts his cane and advances toward Ghoul. One fade-to-black later, the villain has confessed not only to the organization and capabilities of the Jokerz but to being a bed-wetter until he was fourteen.

This is done as TortureAlwaysWorks, but it would be [[MoralDissonance unbecoming]] for our heroes to get their hands dirty with a JackBauerInterrogationTechnique. So instead, they use alternative techniques, usually psychological. They make death threats, point around loaded guns, and use things like [[SleepDeprivationPunishment sleep deprivation]]. Beatings may or may not apply depending on [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown how they're depicted]]. And sometimes, the tortures may be exacted on [[ForcedToWatch someone else]]. Also popular is the threat to turn the prisoner into the custody of some ally who does ''not'' have the same inhibitions against ColdBloodedTorture. The most common, though, is probably the DramaticGunCock and HighAltitudeInterrogation.

** Action Sevem involves [[MindRape intensive psychic probing of the suspect's mind]]. This is often quite painful on a fundamental level, and the suspect may not necessarily survive.

* The Alliance guards running the prison camp do this to Wash in the ''{{Series/Firefly}}'' fic “[[http://www.fireflyfans.net/bluesun.aspx?bid=5989 The Losing Side]]”. They don’t get physical but they yell at him, tell him what they’ll do to him, leave him tied to a chair in a room overnight after telling him and at one point, throw him in solitary confinement for a bit. Wash being Wash, he can’t take it and talks, then struggles with guilt afterward.

--> '''Christopher Hitchens:''' "I apply the Abraham Lincoln test for moral casuistry: 'If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.' Well, then, if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture."

* In ''Literature/TheCardinalOfTheKremlin'', the {{KGB}} uses sensory deprivation to break an agent for the UsefulNotes/{{CIA}}, but they're not able to use it on the titular [[TheMole mole]], due to his advanced age and underlying health problems. They use {{Gaslighting}} instead, which actually reinforces his will to resist. Then they discover his weakness and break him in seconds. In fact, the KGB interrogation techniques can barely be called torture at all (though the sensory deprivation is at least psychological torture).

-->'''Alex:''' Turn up the music! What's next, the water? It doesn't matter, I can always get paperclips! ''[Sings chorus to [[Music/JakeBugg]]'s Seen It All]''

* Creator/ChristopherHitchens discounted waterboarding as a form of torture during UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror, arguing that it was a morally necessary form of Enhanced Interrogation. Then he volunteered to experience it firsthand ForScience It [[RealityEnsues took only a few seconds]] for him to invoke a SafeWord, after which he [[https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2008/08/hitchens200808 wrote an article]] admitting that he was wrong.