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
Jan. 25, 2002 | NSC | ACLU-RDI 4718
National Security Council Fax Cover Sheet with the comment "Here is an Advanced Copy of the Memorandum That Will Be Sent to Your Principals Later This Afternoon." No further comments. No attachments.
June 08, 2005
Letter
John B. Bellinger
William Howard Taft, IV | Jane Dalton | James H. Thessin
John B. Bellinger, III, William Howard Taft, IV, James H. Thessin, Jane Dalton
Feb. 07, 2002 | DOS | ACLU-RDI 4719
Email chain regarding the White House announcement on February 7, 2002 about the treatment of detainees in Guantanamo and corresponding talking points. The memo states that the detainees are illegal combatants, and not Prisoners of War (POWs). ...
June 08, 2005
Email
David W. Bowker
Dan B. Smith | David J. Wolff | Kevin M. O'Reilly | Karen Decker | Cheryl Steele | Amy W. Schedlbauer | LaVonya M. Hayward | William B. Wood
David W. Bowker, David J. Wolff, Daniel B. Smith, Kevin M. O'Reilly, Karen Decker, Cheryl Steele, Amy W. Schedlbauer, LaVonya M. Hayward, William B. Wood
June 08, 2005 | DOS | ACLU-RDI 4721
Letter from Margaret P. Grafeld, DOS to Amrit Singh, ACLU re: the ACLU's FOIA Request. Letter states that the document production requested is being complied with in some parts and denied or withheld in part.
June 08, 2005
Letter, Judicial
Margaret P. Grafeld
Margaret P. Grafeld
DOS | ACLU-RDI 4722
This document consists of seven (7) fax cover sheets from the State Department to State Department Officials concerning Prosecution and Detention of Al-Qaeda and Taliban Detainees. No attachments or details of the underlying fax documents.
June 08, 2005
Letter
Evan T. Bloom
Pierre-Richard Prosper
Evan T. Bloom, Pierre-Richard Prosper, Daniel Dell'Orto, Eliana Davidson, Robert A. Spencer, Daniel P. Collins, Mary Incontro, William Howard Taft, IV, JoAnn J. Dolan, John B. Bellinger, III, Bruce Swartz, Waldo W. Brooks , Patrick Philbin
June 08, 2005 | DOS | ACLU-RDI 4724
Letter from Margaret P. Grafeld, DOS to Amrit Singh, ACLU re: the ACLU's FOIA Request. The letter states that the document production requested is being complied with in some parts and denied or withheld in part.
June 08, 2005
Letter, Judicial
Margaret P. Grafeld
Margaret P. Grafeld
Jan. 31, 2002 | WH | NSA | ACLU-RDI 4725
Routing and tranmittal cover sheets from December 2001 though February 2002 re: Detainee Detention Flow Charts. No attachements
June 08, 2005
Letter
John B. Bellinger, III, Daniel Dell'Orto, Eliana Davidson, Bruce Swartz, Pierre-Richard Prosper, Evan T. Bloom, William Howard Taft, IV
Jan. 20, 2004 | Non-US | ACLU-RDI 4736
Letter from attorney Dennis Edney, attorney for Omar Ahmed Khadr, a detainee held at Camp X-Ray, Guantanamo. The letter is a request for Mr. Graham to take any and all available steps to assert and protect Omar's basic human rights as a Canadian ...
June 08, 2005
Letter
Dennis Edney
Bill Graham
George W. Bush
Omar Ahmed Khadr
Nov. 13, 2001 | EOP | ACLU-RDI 3540

Presidential order authorizing detention of individuals and trial by military commission. From http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/11/20011113-27.html.

June 01, 2005
Non-legal Memo
George W. Bush
George W. Bush
Feb. 07, 2002 | WH | ACLU-RDI 3541
This White House memo describes U.S. policy toward detainees at Guantanamo.  States that they are not entitled to POW treatment but that they are treated humanely and given many of the protections that POWs are given.

June 01, 2005
Non-legal Memo
George W. Bush
George W. Bush
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