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
Sept. 24, 2002 | DOS | ACLU-RDI 3895
DOS interagency delivery checklist for the appropriate handling and delivery of attached documents re: Deputies Committee Meeting on High-Interest: Detainee 9/26 12:30-1:00 pm
Sept. 24, 2002 | DOS | ACLU-RDI 4246
State Department cable reporting on a meeting between an Ambassador and the representative of the wives and family members of detainees’ held at Guantanamo. A letter was passed to the Ambassador and a request to visit the detainees to check on ...
Dec. 30, 2004
Cable
Colin L. Powell
Colin L. Powell, JoAnn J. Dolan, Ronald W. Miller
Sept. 23, 2002 | DOD | ACLU-RDI 1935
Memo states that joint FBI DOD interviews of detainees is behind schedule, but that the individual agencies can commence with interviewing.
Sept. 22, 2002 | FBI | ACLU-RDI 3491
Email from FBI to FBI re: Update on Guantanamo Visit. The email is describing routine matters with no specific detainee information.
Sept. 22, 2002 | ACLU-RDI 6748
This September 2002 email chain discusses medical coverage and setting up for interrogations, which includes having James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen ready to do an initial psycholohical assessment so that they can get waterboard approval and ...
Dec. 20, 2016
Email
James Mitchell , Bruce Jessen
Abu Zubaydah
EIT, Use of water, Waterboarding
Sept. 20, 2002 | EOP | ACLU-RDI 3542

A letter from President Bush describing progress against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and work with other countries.

June 01, 2005
Letter
George W. Bush
John Dennis Hastert | Robert C. Byrd
John Dennis Hastert, Robert C. Byrd
Sept. 19, 2002 | DOS | ACLU-RDI 4487
This cable address questions and concerns over the visiting, the status and treatment of Guantanamo detainees. The memo states that the detainees are illegal combatants, and not Prisoners of War (POWs). It states Al Qaeda is a foreign terrorist ...
Aug. 09, 2005
Cable
Colin L. Powell
Colin L. Powell
Sept. 13, 2002 | DOA | ACLU-RDI 1936
Contents completly redacted.
Sept. 13, 2002 | FBI | ACLU-RDI 3399
Interview of a detainee at Camp Delta, Guantanamo Bay. The detainee stated that he was treated like a criminal. He stated that in prior interviews before Pakistani/U.S. authorities, he was coerced into lying and fabricated information. However, ...
Sept. 13, 2002 | DOS | ACLU-RDI 4013
Message entirely redacted except for a footnote that states "Note: The detainee's father — who has publicized his son's situation by occupying in a cage in downtown Stockholm throughout the past week — staged a protest in front of the Embassy on ...
Dec. 30, 2004
Email
JoAnn J. Dolan
Pierre-Richard Prosper | Ronald W. Miller | William Howard Taft, IV | Brian H. Leventhal | Ed Cummings | Joshua L. Dorosin | Andre M. Surena | Todd F. Buchwald
JoAnn J. Dolan, Pierre-Richard Prosper, Ronald W. Miller, William Howard Taft, IV, Brian H. Leventhal, Edward R. Cummings, Joshua L. Dorosin, Andre M. Surena, Katherine M. Gorove, Todd F. Buchwald