It is clear that the CIA got hold of Ali Soufan's book. His chronicle of the investigation and interrogation of Islamic terrorist suspects is peppered with thick black lines blanking out words . .. whole sentences .. whole paragraphs .. or even whole pages. Ali Soufan was an FBI special agent whose interrogations - literally hands off - aborted several terrorist plots but who left the agency after the CIA insisted on using what it called 'Enhanced Interrogation' and others called torture. Today we speak with Ali Soufan on how to coax a terrorist to talk, why torture backfires and what we should know about terrorist threats.

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Part Three of The Current

The War Against al-Qaeda - Ali Soufan

As you've been hearing on the news former US Vice-President Dick Cheney is on a book tour in Canada. And at an event last night in Vancouver where there were protestors on the outside, guests on the inside paid a reported $599 a pop to listen to him.

Mr. Cheney and other top Bush Administration Officials were of course at the helm when the U.S. began waterboarding captives in an effort to learn more about the plans of al-Qaeda. Some protestors believe Mr. Cheney should face trial for war crimes.

Our next guest not only worried about the legalities of waterboarding, he says such so called 'Enhanced Interrogation' techniques don't actually get you good information. Ali H. Soufan is a former FBI special agent who served on the front lines against al-Qaeda and gained an international reputation as an effective counter terrorism operative and interrogator. He quit the FBI in 2005 and is speaking out about mistakes made and opportunities missed. His book about his experiences has been heavily redacted but it is still full of information, it's called The Black Banners: The Inside Story of 9/11 and the War Against al-Qaeda. Ali Soufan was in New York.

Related Links:

• The Interrogator: An extended conversation with Ali Soufan - PBS Frontline
• Did the C.I.A. stop an F.B.I. detective from preventing 9/11? By Lawrence Wright - The New Yorker (2006) PDF

Last Word - Gloria Steinem

Tomorrow on The Current, the latest in our series on Game Changers - Gloria Steinem will join us. She'll talk about how feminism changed the world and about her own role in helping shape the hopes and opportunities of women.

As one of the founders of MS. magazine, Gloria Steinem became one of the most revered feminists in the U.S. An early magazine assignment remains a colourful part of her journalistic legacy. She went undercover for a time -- a very brief time -- as a bunny in one of Hugh Hefner's Playboy clubs. She wrote about the degradations of dressing as a silk-corseted rabbit and mused that society saw all women as bunnies.

Decades later, she remembers the job mainly -- as drudgery. The Last Word today went to Gloria Steinem.

Other segments from today's show:

• Misconceptions of Asbestos Campaign
• L'Aquila Earthquake Trial