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.
An email, which includes two forwarded emails, between two FBI officials regarding detainee abuse at Guantanamo Bay. The forwarded emails discuss the possible procedural paths to take in a situation where six reports from FBI personnel who were ...
An email thread between FBI officials regarding FBI procedural guidelines on Department of Defense requests to interview FBI Special Agents as witnesses to allegations of detainee abuse or deaths.
Email thread between FBI officials regarding a Department of Defense military investigator's request to interview FBI Special Agents as witnesses to allegations of detainee abuse or deaths. One email cites that a redacted Special Agent was ...
Two forwarded emails documenting the redacted author receiving a letter from Army CID requesting a roster of FBI personnel in Iraq from October to December 2003. This request is part of an investigation of allegations of abuse against detainees ...
An email discussing the Army's requests for an FBI internal report describing abuses witnessed by the FBI and a list of FBI employees who performed interrogations at Abu Gharib. The NY Times mentioned the internal report in an article on ...
An email by an FBI SSA to an FBI agent to make the recipient aware of their "situation/relationships" surrounding an Army CID request for interview. The FBI SSA will be present at the interview merely on behalf at the FBI. The FBI agent is ...
Two emails between FBI agents regarding FBI agents who are listed as witnesses in an internal investigation because they had some sort of contact with a prisoner making allegations of abuse. The Army was informed that they would be available for ...
An email between two FBI officials where one asks the other for advice regarding accusations of prisoner abuse being made against two of their agents in Baghdad. The military is asking for access to documents that indicate the two agents ...
A response by an FBI official to another FBI official providing requested advice regarding alleged accusations of prisoner abuse being made against two FBI agents. The official clarifies that the two agents were not accused of prisoner abuse, but ...
This document is a statement signed by an FBI Special Agent in the presence of a Supervisory Special Agent. The agent recounts their assignment by the Defense Humint Services Headquarters to lead a Humint Augmentation Team in support of a special ...
This heavily redacted investigative file by the FBI transcribes an interview with an FBI Special Agent. The interview's nature seems to be to obtain additional facts surrounding allegations made against a fellow FBI Special Agent, who may or may ...
This considerably redacted investigative file by the FBI transcribes an interview with an FBI Special Agent. The interview's nature seems to be to obtain additional facts surrounding allegations made against a fellow FBI Agent, who may or may not ...
This heavily redacted investigative file by the FBI transcribes an interview with an FBI Special Agent. The interview's nature seems to be to obtain additional facts surrounding allegations made against a fellow FBI Special Agent, who may or may ...
This heavily redacted investigative file by the FBI transcribes an interview with an FBI Special Agent. The interview was meant to obtain additional facts surrounding allegations made against a fellow FBI Special Agent, who is the subject of the ...
A cover letter from the Federal Bureau of Investigation to the Office of the Inspector General enclosing requested materials on detainee issues. The classified materials include items from several internal investigation units, which are to be ...
A cover letter from the Federal Bureau of Investigation to the Office of Inspector General at the U.S. Department of Justice providing requested material on detainee issues. The classified materials include: 304 documents pertaining GTMO, 19 ...
This email, by an FBI agent who had previously dealt with GTMO detainees, is a response to an Inspection Division request made on July 9, 2004 about possible observance of "aggressive treatment, interrogations or interview techniques on GTMO ...
This email, by an FBI agent who had previously dealt with GTMO detainees, is a response to an Inspection Division request made on July 9, 2004 about possible observance of "aggressive treatment, interrogations or interview techniques on GTMO ...
Email by FBI Special Agent Jon E. Bibnik responds to an Inspection Division request about possible observance of "aggressive treatment, interrogations or interview techniques on GTMO detainees." Bibnik responds affirmatively and recounts an ...
This special inquiry document reports that an inspector requested an SSA previously detailed to GTMO to provide a statement of observed behavior regarding the treatment of military detainees at the facility. Said SSA witnessed no aggressive ...
A cover letter from the Federal Bureau of Investigation to the Office of the Inspector General enclosing requested materials on detainee issues. The classified materials includes: Critical Incident Response Group Behavioral Analysis Unit Volume ...
An OLC memo concluding that the CIA’s proposed interrogation plan for Abu Zubaydah — which contemplates methods including “insects placed in a confinement box” and “the waterboard” — does not violate ...
An OLC memo addressing whether certain enhanced interrogation techniques used by the CIA are consistent with the United States's obligations under Article 16 of the United Nations Convention Agsinst Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or ...
An OLC memo addressing whether the combined use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" (including waterboarding) violates the prohibition on torture. The memo concludes that it would not.
Report by NCIS of an investigation into claims by Moazzem Begg that he was physically abused and threatened with sexual assault and rendition to Egypt while in Kandahar and Bagram.
This summary of an interview completed by the U.S. Naval Criminal investigative Service with Guantanamo Bay detainee, Moazaam Begg, was released by the Department of Defense Office of the General Counsel; the DOD's release letter to the ACLU is ...
A DOJ-OIG questionnaire for FBI personnel who were involved in detainee interview or interrogations at assigned locations in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; Iraq; Afghanistan; or in other areas controlled by the U.S. Military. Questionnaire primarily ...
A DOJ-OIG questionnaire for FBI personnel who were involved in detainee interview or interrogations at assigned locations in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; Iraq; Afghanistan; or in other areas controlled by the U.S. Military. Questionnaire primarily ...
A DOJ-OIG questionnaire for FBI personnel who were involved in detainee interview or interrogations at assigned locations in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; Iraq; Afghanistan; or in other areas controlled by the U.S. Military. Questionnaire primarily ...
A DOJ-OIG questionnaire for FBI personnel who were involved in detainee interview or interrogations at assigned locations in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; Iraq; Afghanistan; or in other areas controlled by the U.S. Military. Questionnaire primarily ...
A DOJ-OIG questionnaire for FBI personnel who were involved in detainee interview or interrogations at assigned locations in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; Iraq; Afghanistan; or in other areas controlled by the U.S. Military. Questionnaire primarily ...
A DOJ-OIG questionnaire for FBI personnel who were involved in detainee interview or interrogations at assigned locations in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; Iraq; Afghanistan; or in other areas controlled by the U.S. Military. Questionnaire primarily ...
A DOJ-OIG questionnaire for FBI personnel who were involved in detainee interview or interrogations at assigned locations in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; Iraq; Afghanistan; or in other areas controlled by the U.S. Military. Questionnaire primarily ...
A DOJ-OIG questionnaire for FBI personnel who were involved in detainee interview or interrogations at assigned locations in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; Iraq; Afghanistan; or in other areas controlled by the U.S. Military. Questionnaire primarily ...
A DOJ-OIG questionnaire for FBI personnel who were involved in detainee interview or interrogations at assigned locations in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; Iraq; Afghanistan; or in other areas controlled by the U.S. Military. Questionnaire primarily ...
A DOJ-OIG questionnaire for FBI personnel who were involved in detainee interview or interrogations at assigned locations in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; Iraq; Afghanistan; or in other areas controlled by the U.S. Military. Questionnaire primarily ...
A DOJ-OIG questionnaire for FBI personnel who were involved in detainee interview or interrogations at assigned locations in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; Iraq; Afghanistan; or in other areas controlled by the U.S. Military. Questionnaire primarily ...
A DOJ-OIG questionnaire for FBI personnel who were involved in detainee interview or interrogations at assigned locations in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; Iraq; Afghanistan; or in other areas controlled by the U.S. Military. Questionnaire primarily ...
Letter from the Department of Justice to Judge Hellerstein proposing a schedule of production for certain Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) documents to be provided to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The letter addresses the issues of; ...
This Department of Justice production pursuant to ACLU v. DOD, No. 1:04-CV-4151 (S.D.N.Y.). The list is of videotapes that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) either had or has in its possession and are either available or destroyed.
Page 36 of the CIA Inspector General's Special Review of the CIA's interrogation program. The page describes the interrogation videotapes destroyed by the CIA on November 9, 2005. The page was produced to the ACLU as part of the ...
The memo discusses whether a change to the FISA law would render it unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment. Specifically it considers and concludes that changing the law from requiring that foreign intelligence gathering be “the ...
This memo considers the use of military force to prevent or deter terrorist activity domestically and concludes that, “the President has both constitutional and statutory authority to use the armed forces in military operations, against ...