Revising Miranda

I don't really understand the reasoning behind AG Holder's suggestion that there need to be exceptions to the Miranda regime for terror suspects:

“We’re now dealing with international terrorists,” he said, “and I think that we have to think about perhaps modifying the rules that interrogators have and somehow coming up with something that is flexible and is more consistent with the threat that we now face.”

Police investigating regular crimes (drug gangs, the mafia, etc.) and federal agents investigating terrorism are looking for the same two things when they question a suspect 1.) a confession that the suspect did it, and 2.) information about other people involved or other ongoing plots.

These two pieces of information have very different effects for a suspect who is in fact guilty. Giving the confession is bad for the suspect, because it will land him in prison. However, giving information about other plotters is good, because it can perhaps lead to immunity or a reduced sentence for cooperation.

Miranda rights also effect these two types of information differently - the right to remain silent comes out of the 5th amendment right to not have to incriminate yourself. If you know something about other bad guys (so long as your knowledge doens't incriminate you) you don't have any right to be silent as to that knowledge. The right to an attorney during questioning really just heightens the right to be silent - your attorney will probably tell you not to incriminate yourself, but will probably tell you to rat out your co-conspirators so that you can save yourself.

One conception of terrorists is that they're totally irrational (or at least totally disinterested in their own survival or wellbeing compared to their mission to kill/terrify Americans). If that's the case, then no amount of wheedling, deal-cutting, etc. is going to get information out of them, with or without a lawyer and with or without a reminder that they should remain silent. If this conception of terrorists is right, then Miranda rights are at worst pointless for real terrorists, and are important for the cases where an innocent person is suspected.

However, to the extent that some terrorists are self-interested, rational actors who might be interested in saving their own skin, Miranda is still not a problem from a national security standpoint. When Miranda applies, the suspect is already arrested. This means that he's neutralized for the time being, and even if for some reason he's cut loose, it's highly unlikely that any terror cell will take him back for fear that he's become an informant. This means that, for national security purposes, it doesn't really matter if the interrogators get a confession out of him or not - merely arresting him eliminates him for the foreseeable future as a terror threat. Consequently, if, because of Miranda, he doesn't incriminate himself, it's not really a national security loss.

Moreover, for this type of self-interested terrorist, having a lawyer present is going to help national security goals because the lawyer will advise the suspect to rat out his comrades in hope of getting some kind of leniency. Unlike the "mob lawyers", for example, there aren't (as far as I know) "terrorist lawyers" who have some kind of economic integration with Al Qaeda such that they would advise their clients to clam up for the good of the conspiracy. Most terror suspects are represented by legal aid or public defenders who don't have any kind of loyalty to al Qaeda's goals, and will just try to represent their client zealously, which, in criminal law, typically means finding a way to cut the best plea bargain possible with the prosecutors.

Summing it up, this means that in reality, Miranda rights are at worst a non-issue with terror suspects, and in some situations could speed along cooperation with investigators. Miranda is also critical when the suspect is innocent. So I don't really see any reason why they need to be changed, unless the real reason is something more sinister - the government wants to keep lawyers out of the process so that they can continue unsavory interrogation practices like torture and rendition that lawyers would (justifiably) fight.