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
This article describes inquires by the Army's Criminal Investigation Division and the Pentagon into the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal in Iraq.
Mar. 15, 2013
Other
Ricardo Sanchez, Donald H. Rumsfeld, Donald J. Ryder
Other
Likely a cover sheet for CIA documents from, or relating to, incidents in 2003.

A redacted March 4, 2004 non-legal memo from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) to the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD). This paper "responds to an OSD request" seeking to enumerate the implications of releasing ...

Mar. 15, 2013
Non-legal Memo
Richard Butler
Amir Hamudi Hasan Al-Sadi
A redacted PowerPoint presentation from the Defense Intelligence Agency's Middle East and South Asia Office. The presentation slides describe the DIA's Insurgency Database and criteria for the inclusion of Iraqi regime leaders and/or insurgents ...
An OLC memo analyzing the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in the Time of War ("GC"). The memo provides three opinions. Part I concludes that "GC governs the occupation of Iraq." Part II discusses GC's general ...
Mar. 15, 2013
Legal Memo
Jack Goldsmith
Scott Muller
William J. Haynes, II, Scott W. Muller, Jack L. Goldsmith, Alberto R. Gonzales

This May 24, 2004 Newsweek article discusses the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal. It describes legal justifications for the Bush administration's interrogation program.

In this letter dated May 6, 2004, Human Rights Watch "calls, first, for the U.S. government to reveal all places of detention where security or terrorist suspects are being held on whatever grounds, and second, for it to permit independent, ...
Mar. 15, 2013
Letter
Kenneth Roth
Donald Rumsfeld
Donald H. Rumsfeld, George J. Tenet
CIA copy of Associated Press article describing U.S. military efforts to stem the flow of unauthorized individuals and weapons into Iraq from Syria.
Mar. 15, 2013
Other
David Teeples, L. Paul Bremer, Chris Alfeiri

This article describes the investigation into the death of an unidentified Iraqi detainee at the Abu Ghraib prison. A photograph of the detainee's body, which the LA Times calls one of "the most indelible images yet made public," ...

CIA copy of a Los Angeles Times article reporting the death of former Iraqi general Major General Abed Hamed Mowhoush.
Mar. 15, 2013
Other
Abed Hamed Mowhoush
EIT, Environmental manipulation, Hooding/Goggling