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 (6)

RelevanceDateRelease Date
Jan. 28, 2003 | ACLU-RDI 6600
This document is a CIA Memo drafted for the Deputy Director for Operations via the Associate Deputy Director for Operations/Counterintelligence. The memo contains background information related to the treatment and condition of detainees as it ...
Sept. 26, 2016
Non-legal Memo
James Pavitt
Bruce Jessen, James Mitchell
Gul Rahman
EIT, SERE, Use of water, Physical assault, General, Stress positions, Sleep deprivation, Dietary manipulation, Environmental manipulation, Light or sound, Temperature, Hooding/Goggling, Nudity, Other Humiliation
May 08, 2003 | DOD | ACLU-RDI 4854
Executive Summary discussing the U.S. Southern Command's request to use additional interrogation techniques. On April 16, 2003, the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, approved the following techniques: change of scenery down, which was ...
Jan. 05, 2007
Non-legal Memo
Donald H. Rumsfeld
Sleep deprivation, Isolation, Dietary manipulation, Environmental manipulation, Temperature, Manipulation of interrogator’s identity, Other
June 30, 2003 | CID | FBI | ACLU-RDI 1896
This investigative report was generated by the Criminal Investigative Task Force (CITF) Report of Investigative Activity and the interview of the detainee at Camp Delta was conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Navy Naval ...
Dec. 21, 2005
Investigative File, Interview (Summaries/Notes)
Environmental manipulation, Light or sound, Temperature
Jan. 08, 2003 | FBI | ACLU-RDI 3425
Interview of detainee at Camp Delta, Guantanamo Bay. When asked how he was doing the detainee stated "that things were not going well, and that he perceived current U.S. actions as a holy war between Christians and Muslims, propagated by ...
May 18, 2005
Interview (Summaries/Notes)
General, Cramped confinement, Temperature, Religious, Physical assault, Environmental manipulation, Other Humiliation
Oct. 20, 2003 | Non-US | ACLU-RDI 3974
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights litigation requesting that the Commission take measures to have the legal status of detainees held at Guantanamo be determined by a competent court, and to protect against the torture of detainees.
Dec. 30, 2004
Judicial (Pleading)
Physical assault, Assault/death, Stress positions, Isolation, Temperature, Threat, Environmental manipulation
Oct. 03, 2003 | DOA | ACLU-RDI 237
Interrogation Rules of Engagement for the 205th MI Brigade, Iraq. Sets forth techniques for use on detainees, of which, including isolation for more than 30 days and the presence of military working dogs, requires the Commanding General's ...
Oct. 19, 2004
Non-legal Memo, Other
Stress positions, Use of phobias, Sleep deprivation, Isolation, Dietary manipulation, Environmental manipulation, Light or sound, Temperature