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 (31)

A letter from the CIA to OLC requesting that the OLC reaffirm its analyses in several previously issued memos relating to interrogation. The letter states that "we rely on the applicable law and OLC guidance to assess the lawfulness of detention ...
June 13, 2016
Legal Memo, Letter
CIA General Counsel
Jack Goldsmith
EIT, SERE, Use of water, Water dousing, Physical assault, Stomach/abdominal slap, Environmental manipulation, Temperature
This document is the CIA's response to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's Study of the Central Intelligence Agency's Detention and Interrogation Program. "The comments presented in this paper on The Senate Select Committee on ...
Two pages of a Human Rights First report that includes a profile of the homicide of Manadel al-Jamadi, an Iraqi citizen captured and tortured in Abu Ghraib by Navy SEALS and CIA personnel. Al-Jamadi died on November 4, 2003 after being tortured ...
Jan. 14, 2014
Other
Human Rights First
Manadel Al-Jamadi
EIT, Use of water, Water dousing, Physical assault

A State Department memo addressing whether Article 16 of the Convention Against Torture applies to the CIA's interrogations in foreign countries. The State Department determined that the prohibitions against torture do apply, despite its ...

A letter from the CIA to OLC requesting that the OLC reaffirm its analyses in several previously issued memos relating to interrogation.  The letter states that "we rely on the applicable law and OLC guidance to assess the lawfulness ...

An OLC memo to the CIA addressing whether the use of "twelve particular interrogation techniques (attention grasp, walling, facial hold, facial slap (insult slap), cramped confinement, wall standing, stress positions, sleep depravation, ...

An OLC memo to the CIA addressing whether the use of four enhanced techniques, "dietary manipulation, nudity, water dousing, and abdominal slaps," in the interrogation of [redacted] would violate the law. The letter concludes that ...

Aug. 24, 2009
Legal Memo, Letter
Daniel B. Levin
John A. Rizzo
Daniel B. Levin, John A. Rizzo
EIT, Use of water, Water dousing, Physical assault, Stomach/abdominal slap, Dietary manipulation, Nudity

A background paper on the CIA's combined use of interrogation techniques, addressed to Daniel Levin, Acting Assistant Attorney General. The document states that "Effective interrogation is based on the concept of using both physical and ...