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 (6709)

RelevanceDateRelease Date
State Department cable concerning the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs Staff meeting notes from January 23, 2002. Multiple topics, including detainees. "Public Reaction re detainees is turning very negative." Concerns of various countries ...
Dec. 17, 2004
Cable
Colin L. Powell
Colin L. Powell, Paula J. Dobriansky
State Department cable concerning the Tokyo Conference; the transfer of detainees to Guantanamo; the ability and schedule of the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) to visit Guantanamo facilities and the detainees; and the ability of ...
Dec. 17, 2004
Cable
Colin L. Powell
State Department cable to Washington informing them that a Foreign Minister has made a request for a visitation of one of his nation's citizens being held at Guantanamo. The cable is heavily redacted.
Dec. 17, 2004
Cable
Colin L. Powell
Colin L. Powell
State department Embassy cable informing Washington that they have informed a Foreign Affairs Minister of the transfer of some of his nation's citizens to Guantanamo. The Foreign Minister expressed concern over the reports of detainee’s abuse, ...
Dec. 17, 2004
Cable
Colin L. Powell
Colin L. Powell
State Department cable providing information to Washington about Assistant Secretary William Burns visiting Kuwait on January 11-12 for Consultations with the Kuwaiti Government Focused on Operation Enduring Freedom, Middle East Peace, the U.S. ...
Dec. 17, 2004
Cable
Colin L. Powell
Colin L. Powell, John Dimitri Negroponte
State Department cable regarding the release of a biography of a former Danish Guantanamo detainee, Slimane Hadj Abderrahmane. Mr. Abderrahmane has not made any public statements alleging mistreatment, but the Danish press is highlighting the ...
State Department cable from the U.S. Mission in Geneva to Washington containing a letter by Leila Zerrougui, the UN Special Rapporteur on Arbitrary Detention concerning persons being held by U.S. forces where the persons have not been charged ...
Dec. 17, 2004
Cable
Kevin Edward Moley
Colin L. Powell
Kevin Edward Moley, Colin L. Powell
State Department cable to the U.S. Mission in Venna to deliver remarks of Sec. Powell to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe May 13, 2003. The points to make are i) The Military Commissions will be impartial; ii) there is a ...
Dec. 17, 2004
Cable
Colin L. Powell, George W. Bush
State Department cable from the U.S. Mission in Geneva containing a letter received by Ms. Asma Jahangir, UN Special Rapporteurs on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions and Torture and Mr. Theo van Boven the Special Rapporteur on ...
Dec. 17, 2004
Cable
Asma Jahangir
Colin L. Powell
Colin L. Powell
This State Department cable provides talking points for a presentation to the Netherlands-Helsinki Committee meeting in the Hague in September 2003. The statement is about the military commissions and the Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters who will be ...
Dec. 17, 2004
Cable
Colin L. Powell
Colin L. Powell