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
May 04, 2004 | DOA | ACLU-RDI 1202
Army public affairs officer discusses a press briefing where the detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib prison and AR 15-6 reports being leaked to the press. Outlines questions anticipated based around the leaked Executive Summary.
May 16, 2005
Email
Donald H. Rumsfeld, Peter Pace
May 04, 2004 | DOA | ACLU-RDI 1203
Transcript of a media conversation where Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Public Affairs Lawrence Di Rita provides background to the Abu Ghraib investigation.
May 16, 2005
Email
Lawrence Di Rita, David D. McKiernan, Ricardo Sanchez, John P. Abizaid, Antonio Taguba, James R. Helmly, Richard B. Myers, Janis Leigh Karpinski, George R. Fay
May 04, 2004 | DOA | ACLU-RDI 1405
Memo references five alleged detainee abuse cases from Iraq, states the cases were unreported, but were uncovered during a DAIG assessment. In one incident, the complainant, a member of the 2nd Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment, ...
July 15, 2005
Non-legal Memo
Physical assault, General
May 04, 2004 | DOD | ACLU-RDI 1852
Email provides recipients with an updated strategy on detainee operations following the Army's discovery of detainee abuse. Original email/update is from Major General Geoffrey Miller.
Dec. 21, 2005
Email
Geoffrey D. Miller, Ricardo Sanchez, Thomas F. Metz
May 04, 2004 | DOA | ACLU-RDI 2040
These emails are generated in the wake of the Abu Ghraib prison detainee abuse incidents involving the Military Police and Military Intelligence Units of the Army. The email states that general Burns is seeking the "Post-MOB training of this unit ...
Feb. 15, 2006
Email
Julian H. Burns
James A Kelley | Joseph R. Inge | Keith M. Huber
Julian H. Burns, James A Kelley
May 04, 2004 | DOD | ACLU-RDI 2262
Executive summary lists the names of Army reserve military police soldiers who were all administratively discharged from the Army prior to their scheduled court-martial hearings for offenses committed at Camp Bucca, Iraq.
Feb. 15, 2006
Non-legal Memo
James R. Helmly, Antonio Taguba, David D. McKiernan, Michael Diamond
May 04, 2004 | DOD | ACLU-RDI 2648
This is a worksheet for the in-take and processing of detainees captured in the field. The detainee associated with his worksheet is redacted, but states he was captured and confessed to participating in "6 separate occasions" of "IED attacks on ...
May 04, 2004 | CRIM | ACLU-RDI 2737

Heavily redacted email thread re "potential torture involving Iraqi detainees".

Oct. 15, 2004
Email
Laura Parsky | David E. Nahmias | Teresa L. McHenry
Laura Parsky | David E. Nahmias | John Richter | Monique Roth | Teresa L. McHenry
Laura H. Parsky, Teresa L. McHenry, David E. Nahmias, John Richter, Monique Roth
May 04, 2004 | ACLU-RDI 2738
DOD Deleted Page Information Sheet
May 04, 2004 | FBI | ACLU-RDI 2813

Cable from FBI requesting Savannah ITC to check for the real names and aliases of a list of detainees who are in consideration for repatriation as per a Department of Defense request.