After September 11, 2001, U.S. officials authorized the cruel treatment and torture of prisoners held in Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantanamo, and the CIA's secret prisons overseas.

This database documents the U.S. government's official experiment with torture. At present, the database contains well over 100,000 pages of government documents obtained primarily through Freedom of Information Act litigation and requests filed by the ACLU, and through litigation of Salim v. Mitchell, a lawsuit brought by the ACLU on behalf of the survivors and the family of a dead victim of the CIA torture program. To learn more about the database, please read the About and Search Help pages. If you're a developer, you can also access this data through our API.

Search Result (248)

This letter from Steven Bradbury to John Rizzo memorializes the advice that Bradbury gave to Rizzo regarding whether the conditions of confinement used by the CIA in its covert overseas facilities are consistent with common Article 3 of the 1949 ...
Aug. 31, 2016
Letter
Steven G. Bradbury
John A. Rizzo
Steven G. Bradbury, John A. Rizzo
Isolation, Environmental manipulation, Light or sound, Other
General Sanchez states in his memo that "[this] memorandum established the interrogation and counter-resistance policy for CJTF-7." The memo contains two enclosures: 1. Interrogation Techniques; 2. General Safeguards. Gen. Sanchez states that ...
This article describes inquires by the Army's Criminal Investigation Division and the Pentagon into the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal in Iraq.
Mar. 15, 2013
Other
Ricardo Sanchez, Donald H. Rumsfeld, Donald J. Ryder
Other
This May 5, 2004 transcript from ABC World News Tonight: ABC TV reports on the CIA's investigation into the death of "Mon Adel Al-Jamadi" and "Abed Amid Mahoush" in Iraq as well as the death of a detainee in Afghanistan. It describes the Abu ...
Mar. 15, 2013
Other
Bob Baer
Manadel Al-Jamadi, Abed Hamed Mowhoush
Other
This article describes "a set of secret rules for the interrogation of high-level Qaeda prisoners" that the Bush Administration, Department of Justice, and CIA adopted after September 11.
CIA copy of London Sky News article describing Prime Minister Tony Blair's response to photographs showing American soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

This report concerns allegations that mind-altering drugs were administered to facilitate the interrogation of detainees under DOD control between September 2001 and April 2008. The report concluded that it could not substantiate the claim ...

This documents the interview of Detainee 269 at GTMO on 5/4/06. It states that Detainee 269 was interviewed in an air conditioned room with his hands free and his feet shackled to a bolt in the floor. The synopsis states that the purpose of the ...
Nov. 01, 2011
Interview (Summaries/Notes)
Other
This is a CID investigation in to the reported killing and mutilation of an unarmed Afghani civilian in Helmand Province Afghanistan by a Special Forces soldier. This CID investigation alleges that a Master Sergeant (MSG) shot the Afghani male on ...
Jan. 14, 2011
Chart/List, Investigative File (CID), Notes, Photograph, Interview (Statement, Summaries/Notes)
Unknown Afghan Male, Foward Operating Base Robinson, Helmand Provence, Afganistan, March 1, 2008
Physical assault, Other Humiliation, Other