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 (127)

RelevanceDateRelease Date
This CIA list includes Abu Zubaydah's reported terrorist activity, injuries at the time of capture, highlights from reporting, legal authority for interrogation techniques used, and interrogation techniques used on Abu Zubaydah.
This August 3, 2002 cable provides authorization to implement more aggressive techniques in the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, including the use of the water board and mock burial, as described in this cable. The cable also provides information ...
This is a moderately redacted cable which summarizes the mechanics and legal basis for use of enhanced interrogation techniques on detainees. The cable states that "our attorneys have presented our legal analysis to the legal adviser to the NSC, ...
This August 4, 2002 cable details the first and second sessions of the aggressive phase of interrogation of Abu Zubaydah. Throughout these sessions Abu Zubaydah continued to maintain his position that he had no additional information.
This CIA cable to the ALEC Info Director is heavily redacted and states that the IC SERE Psychologists recommend using the waterboard technique for the "aggressive" phase of Abu Zubaydah's interrogation.
Dec. 20, 2016
Cable
Abu Zubaydah
EIT, Use of water, Waterboarding
This email chain includes two cables discussing the status of Abu Zubaydah's interrogation and describing his condition. The first cable is dated August 2, 2002 and describes Abu Zubaydah's condition on day 45 of the isolation phase. It also ...
This October 23, 2006 email includes a cable describing Abu Zubaydah's current condition in isolation and observations of a rehearsal of the next phase of Abu Zubaydah's interrogations, which included the use of confinement boxes and the water ...
Dec. 20, 2016
Email, Cable
Abu Zubaydah
Use of water, Waterboarding, Cramped confinement, Isolation
This 2002 cable requests that IC Psychologist James Mitchell remain at the undisclosed location in order to provide continued assistance in the Abu Zubaydah interrogation. The cable states that Mitchell's role is "key" and they need him there to ...
Dec. 20, 2016
Cable
CTC/UBL
James Mitchell
Abu Zubaydah
SERE, Use of water, Waterboarding
This memo describes the CIA's rendition, detention, and interrogation program, including the legal authorities under which the program operates and the safeguards and controls that have been undertaken to prevent deviation, improvisation, abuse ...
This cable describes the enhanced interrogation techniques that interrogation teams can employ, pending approval and sets forth federal law which limits the use of these techniques by U.S. government personnel and requires that interrogation ...