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
June 23, 2004 | ACLU-RDI 6440
This document is a FBI Situation Report for FBI Detachment in Afghanistan (6/23/04). It contains logistical information about FBI presence as well as detainee information, summaries of detainee interviews, and updates about FBI missions ...
Feb. 15, 2006 | DOS | ACLU-RDI 5000

A State Department memo addressing whether Article 16 of the Convention Against Torture applies to the CIA's interrogations in foreign countries. The State Department determined that the prohibitions against torture do apply, despite its ...

Apr. 03, 2012
Legal Memo
Phillip Zelikow
Phillip Zelikow
EIT, Use of water, Waterboarding, Water dousing, Physical assault, Face slap or insult slap, Walling, Stress positions, Cramped confinement, Sleep deprivation, Dietary manipulation, Nudity
Dec. 01, 2008 | DOS | ACLU-RDI 6817
This heavily redacted cable discusses a meeting at Embassy Suva to discuss a relocation/asylum proposal. The memo also discusses a meeting between Ambassador McGann and New Zealand High Commissioner to Kiribati Robert Kawai to discuss assistance ...
May 15, 2012
Cable
American Embassy Suva
Secstate
C. Steven McGann
Apr. 02, 2003 | DOS | ACLU-RDI 6820
This attached fax cover sheet and letter is a response from Director Gerald Feierstein to Mr. and Mrs. Sturtevant's January 31, 2002 letter concerning the Bush Administration's policy with respect to the detention of enemy combatants captured in ...
May 15, 2012
Letter, Other
Gerald Feierstein [nid:12179]
Mr. and Mrs. Sturtevant
Gerald Feierstein, Anne Crowther
Aug. 16, 2002 | ACLU-RDI 6821
This document contains a citizen's letter to President Bush voicing disapproval that Afghan prisoners are not treated like prisoners of war and includes an attached article from the San Francisco Chronicle. The document also contains an August ...
May 15, 2012
Letter
George W. Bush
Anne Crowther
Feb. 07, 2002 | WH | ACLU-RDI 6822
This February 7, 2002 memorandum announces to the vice president, secretary of state, attorney general, CIA director, and others that the President accepts the legal conclusions of the Department of Justice that the Geneva Conventions do not ...
May 15, 2012
Non-legal Memo
George W. Bush
Richard B. Cheney
Colin L. Powell, Condoleeza Rice, Jay B. Stephens, Andrew Card, George J. Tenet, Richard B. Myers
Feb. 02, 2002 | NSC | ACLU-RDI 6823
This document contains a chart labeled "Detainees-Limited Access" from the National Security Council Distribution Receipt West Wing Desk. The chart contains a list of government officials under the "addressee" column.
May 15, 2012
Chart/List
Richard B. Cheney, Colin L. Powell, Donald H. Rumsfeld, John D. Ashcroft, Andrew Card, George J. Tenet, Richard B. Myers
Sept. 22, 2004 | DOS | ACLU-RDI 6824
This series of letters contains the original inquiry from Macbeth Bertrand Henry, President of the Commission on Children's Rights about juvenile detainees in Guantanamo Bay prison. The response letter from Pierre-Richard Prosper asserts that ...
May 15, 2012
Letter
Pierre-Richard Prosper
Macbeth Bertrand-Henry
Sept. 23, 2009 | DOD | ACLU-RDI 5020

This report concerns allegations that mind-altering drugs were administered to facilitate the interrogation of detainees under DOD control between September 2001 and April 2008. The report concluded that it could not substantiate the claim ...

June 28, 2012
Oversight Report
Patricia A. Brannin
Donald H. Rumsfeld, Peter H. Daly, William Melendez, Jay W. Hood, David M. Edgington, Charles A. Blanchard, Thomas W. Cunningham, James T. Faust, Ronald L. Burgess, Jr., Jay Alan Liotta, Laurence K. Burgess
Jose Padilla
Physical assault, General, Stress positions, Sleep deprivation, Other
Feb. 23, 2011 | DOA | ACLU-RDI 5026

 An autopsy report for Awal Gul, who died in Guantanamo Bay on February 1, 2011. This Army autopsy report concluded that his death was natural and caused by atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease.

Feb. 28, 2013
Medical (Autopsy, Death Certificate)
Awal Gul