The mad minute is a CIA case-officer procedure for the opening seconds of every meeting with a recruited source. Per John Kiriakou, recounting his standing instructions to a double-agent target in a Middle Eastern country three weeks before September 11, 2001:[1]
Since this is our first meeting we need to talk about some of the basics. The first thing we’re going to do every time we see each other is something that we call the mad minute at the CIA. So I ask you: Are you safe? Were you followed here? Did you do a surveillance-detection route? And we make plans for the next meeting. So if somebody busts down the door, we’ve at least gotten the important stuff out of the way.[2]