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 (41)

This Statement of Need requests that the CIA's Counterterrorism Center (CTC) renew James Mitchell, Bruce Jessen and two additional SERE psychologists' Independent Contractor contracts so that they can continue to support the CTC's interrogation ...
Dec. 20, 2016
Other
Bruce Jessen, James Mitchell
This email chain discusses the use, purpose, and constraints of psychological support in interrogations and includes feedback from Jim Mitchell.
Dec. 20, 2016
Email
Bruce Jessen, James Mitchell
SERE
This is an email (with sender and receiver redacted) sending a final draft of the CIA High Value Target Interrogation and Exploitation (HVTIE) Team Training document. The postscript note in the email mentions Mitchell and Jessen by name and ...
Dec. 20, 2016
Email
James Mitchell , Bruce Jessen
SERE
This cable includes the contents of Abu Zubaydah's April 2004 mental status exam and December 2003 psychological assesment conducted by Mitchell and Jessen.
Dec. 20, 2016
Cable, Medical
Bruce Jessen, James Mitchell
Abu Zubaydah
This is an email which provides electronic copies "of the CTC/RDG Interrogator Course Critiques." This course was taught by Mitchell, Jessen, and one other redacted official, and the critiques come from "interrogator graduates" and an OMS ...
Dec. 20, 2016
Email, Other
James Mitchell , Bruce Jessen
This is a heavily redacted email sent to students who "have been selected/invited to attend/support the CTC/RDG Interrogators and Debriefers courses." The only unredacted information in the email (other than Mitchell and Jessen's names) is ...
Dec. 20, 2016
Email
Bruce Jessen, James Mitchell
This March 2004 paper written by James Mitchell and John Jessen discusses the importance of knowing how human memory works for intelligence collection efforts. The paper also includes some interrogation and debriefing techniques to employ on ...
Dec. 20, 2016
Non-legal Memo
James Mitchell and John Jessen
James Mitchell , Bruce Jessen
This email includes a list of Office of Technical Service (OTS) officers involved in the Detention, Rendition or Interrogation of terrorists since September 11, 2001. The list includes James Mitchell and John (Bruce) Jessen.
Dec. 20, 2016
Chart/List, Email
Bruce Jessen, James Mitchell
This September 2002 email chain discusses medical coverage and setting up for interrogations, which includes having James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen ready to do an initial psycholohical assessment so that they can get waterboard approval and ...
Dec. 20, 2016
Email
James Mitchell , Bruce Jessen
Abu Zubaydah
EIT, Use of water, Waterboarding
This is a redacted memo which discusses the interrogations Mitchell and Jessen are involved with and where they are needed. Mitchell is associated with the interrogation of several different detainees, all redacted except for Gul Rahman.
Dec. 20, 2016
Non-legal Memo, Cable
James Mitchell , Bruce Jessen
Gul Rahman
EIT