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)

FBI talking points re: Polices governing the FBI's participation in overseas interrogation. Heavily redacted.
Emails between June C. Perry, Katherine L. Starr, Mark P. Lagon and Others re: State Final Press Guidance on Ramcharan Human Rights Report on Iraq. Ms. Perry's comments to Ms. Starr are "Great work, Kate."
DOS Memo talking points on United Nations Report on Human Rights in Iraq. Guidance states that the some of the report's findings related to alleged human rights violations are based on generalized allegations that fail to indicate where or when ...
Coalition Provisional Authority memo prescribes standards to be applied to Iraqi border control, customs, immigration and consular or quarantine services under authority of the Ministry of Justice. Includes 19 sections with headings such as ...
Jan. 14, 2014
Non-legal Memo
L. Paul Bremer
L. Paul Bremer
This DOS Cable is from the US Embassy in Damascus, Syria to the DOS Washington with a summary of media reactions in Damascus to US policies & other matters.
Memo discusses the inability of a Sergeant to identify persons depicted in photographs of alleged detainee abuse.
Sworn statement regarding detainee abuse. The interviewee identified an individual in a photo stating he always carried a K-bar knife and stated that "the death of the detainee was from integration from MI. She told me it was listed as a heart ...
Mar. 03, 2005
Interview (Transcript)
Use of phobias, Other Humiliation, Other
Interviewee (title and length of assignment unknown). Interviewee identified individual(s) in photo(s). [Names are redacted].
Interviewee (title and length of assignment unknown). Interviewee recalled witnessing two incidents. In the first incident, the detainee was being interrogated, and at one point [redacted] told the detainee to roll down his jumpsuit and ...
Mar. 03, 2005
Interview (Transcript)
Thomas Pappas
Physical assault, General, Threat, Isolation, Environmental manipulation, Hooding/Goggling, Nudity, Other Humiliation