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 14, 2004 | ACLU-RDI 3226

Letter from Michael Posner, the Executive Director of Human Rights First to Attorney General John Ashcroft. The letter requests information on the investigation of those who reportedly committed acts of torture to hold them legally responsible ...

Dec. 15, 2004
Letter
Michael Posner
John D. Ashcroft
John D. Ashcroft
June 14, 2004 | DOS | ACLU-RDI 4256
State Department cable concerning several press reports focusing on the situation in Iraq and Saudi Araiba. International media attention focused on human rights issues, specifically Abu Graib and the killing of civilians in U.S. air strikes and ...
Dec. 20, 2004
Cable
Colin L. Powell
George W. Bush, Colin L. Powell
June 14, 2004 | Non-US | ACLU-RDI 4288
Letter from William F. Schultz, Executive Director, Amnesty International to U.S. President George W. Bush re: Human Rights in Afghanistan.
Dec. 17, 2004
Letter
William F. Schultz
George W. Bush
George W. Bush
June 14, 2004 | DOS | ACLU-RDI 4466
Emails concerning press guidance regarding the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) and their February 2004 report.
Jan. 12, 2005
Email
John A. Buche
JoAnn J. Dolan | Edward R. Cummings | Joshua L. Dorosin | Ronald W. Miller
John Allen Buche, JoAnn J. Dolan, Margaret J. Pollack, Ronald W. Miller, Edward R. Cummings, Joshua L. Dorosin, Waldo W. Brooks
June 14, 2004 | DOD | ACLU-RDI 5839
This document is a Department of Defense (DOD) Memo discussing the death of Khan Achmed, a detainee who died from TB, pneumonia and kidney failure at Bagram Detention Facility, Afghanistan. Thomas W. O'Connell, Assistant Secretary of Defense for ...
Apr. 29, 2011
Non-legal Memo
Thomas W. O'Connell
Douglas J. Feith
Douglas J. Feith, Thomas W. O'Connell
Khan Achmed
June 14, 2004 | FBI | ACLU-RDI 6190
The document is an internal FBI email sent from Eleni Kalisch to FBI Director Robert Mueller, regarding an HPSCI briefing concerning detainee interrogations. The briefing included information about the yield of information from detainee ...
Email
Eleni P. Kalisch
Robert S. Mueller
Eleni P. Kalisch, Robert S. Mueller, Bruce J. Gebhardt, John S. Pistole, Gary M. Bald, Keith B. Alexander, Lowell Jacoby
Jose Padilla
June 14, 2004 | ACLU-RDI 6123
The document is an internal Department of Defense email, regarding a lack of protected communication that is hindering the process of true assessment at the BIAP facility.
June 14, 2004 | FBI | ACLU-RDI 6192
The document is an internal FBI email sent to FBI Director Robert Mueller, regarding possible topics for an AG meeting with a redacted entity, including prisoner abuse cases and legal advice about the treatment of detainees.
Jan. 15, 2010
Email
Robert S. Mueller
Robert S. Mueller
| ACLU-RDI
| ACLU-RDI