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 (156)

This cable details the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah that took place on August 6, 2002. This interrogation included the use of walling, waterboarding "numerous times", attention grab, insult slap, confinement box, and hooding. The cable states ...
This July 2002 cable is a request for guidance from headquarters on the use of enhanced interrogation techniques. The cable expresses hesitation about using these techniques on subjects being held in solitary confinement without legal ...
This cable includes the bios of the detainees and lists the EITs they were subjected to while they were in CIA custody. It is redacted almost in full with the exception of information on the following three detainees: Suleiman Abdullah, Gul ...
This document, prepared by the Chief of Medical Services, summarizes and reflects upon the rendition, detention and interrogation program. The findings include that in a particular no evidence was found that the use of waterboard produced ...
This report details the investigation into the death of Gul Rahman. This re-released report includes a description of psychologist Bruce Jessen and his role in the interrogation of Gul Rahman. A version of this document was re-released in ...
This document, prepared by the Chief of Medical Services, summarizes and reflects upon the rendition, detention and interrogation program. The findings include that in a particular no evidence was found that the use of waterboard produced ...
This cable provides formal authorization to proceed with portions of the next phase of Abu Zubaydah's interrogation, which include "more aggressive techniques" in order to obtain information, that the interrogation team concludes he is ...
This cable includes the text of the January 28, 2003 DCI approved "Guidelines on Interrogations Conducted Pursuant to the Presidential Memorandum of Notification of 17 September 2001". The cable also asks that all personnel involved in ...
This document is a memorandum from the chief of the Counterintelligence Evaluation Branch of the Counterespionage Group in the Counterintelligence Center about an interview conducted with John B. Jessen regarding the death of Gul Rahman.
An OLC memo from Bradbury to Rizzo addressing whether the combined use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" (including waterboarding) violates the prohibition on torture. The memo concludes that it would not violate the torture statute if used ...