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 (48)

This National Security Council memo discusses the use of the CIA's proposed EITs in the interrogation of high-value al Qaeda detainees. The memo divides the proposed EITs into two categories, "conditioning" and "corrective" and concludes that ...
This National Security Council memo summarizes the OLC's three May 2005 opinions for the CIA on the legality of its interrogation techniques.
This legal memorandum from Steven Bradbury to John Rizzo examines the application of the War Crimes Act, the Detainee Treatment Act, and Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions to certain techniques that may be used by the CIA to interrogate ...
Letter from Daniel Levin to John Rizzo discussing whether the use of twelve interrogation techniques in the interrogation of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani would violate any U.S. statute, the U.S. Constitution, or any treaty obligation of the U.S.
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 deprivation, dietary ...
Email from Daniel Levin to John Rizzo discussing whether the use of twelve interrogation techniques in the interrogation of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani would violate any U.S. statute, the U.S. Constitution, or any treaty obligation of the U.S.
Email from Daniel Levin to John Rizzo discussing whether the use of twelve interrogation techniques in the interrogation of Sharif al-Masri would violate any U.S. statute, the U.S. Constitution, or any treaty obligation of the U.S.
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 ...
These guidelines, issued by George Tenet, detail permissible interrogation techniques (including EITs), medical and psychological personnel who must be present, interrogation personnel, approvals required, and recordkeeping requirements.

The DOJ's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) released this report investigating whether Department of Justice attorneys violated their ethical obligations in issuing several memoranda authorizing the use of Enhanced Interrogation ...

July 19, 2010
Oversight Report
Frank Wolf, Larry Thompson, Ted Ullyot, George J. Tenet, Steven G. Bradbury, Jay S. Bybee, John C. Yoo, Patrick Leahy, David S. Addington, John D. Ashcroft, John B. Bellinger, III, David Brant, Michael Chertoff, Adam Ciongoli, Paul Clement, James B. Comey, Alice Fisher, Timothy E. Flanigan, Ari Fleischer, Jack L. Goldsmith, Alberto R. Gonzales, Stephen Hadley, William J. Haynes, II, John L. Helgerson, H. Marshall Jarrett, Patrick Leahy, Daniel B. Levin, John McCain, John McLaughlin, Paul McNulty, Harriet Miers, Alberto Mora, Steven J. Morello, Scott W. Muller, Robert S. Mueller, Patrick Philbin, Colin L. Powell, Condoleeza Rice, John A. Rizzo, Chuck Rosenberg, Donald H. Rumsfeld, George W. Bush, Michael Mukasey, Mark Filip, Barack H. Obama, David Margolis, Michael Gelles, Robert J. Delahunty, Diane E. Beaver, Thomas J. Romig, David Leitch, John B. Wiegmann, Alan Kreczko, Christopher Schroeder
Abu Zubaydah, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Mohammed al Qahtani, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi
EIT, SERE, Use of water, Waterboarding, Physical assault, Face slap or insult slap, Stomach/abdominal slap, Attention grasp, Facial hold, Walling, Threat, Assault/death, Family/others, Stress positions, Cramped confinement, Use of phobias, Sleep deprivation, Isolation, Dietary manipulation, Environmental manipulation, Light or sound, Temperature, Hooding/Goggling, Nudity, Other Humiliation, Forced grooming, Manipulation of interrogator’s identity, Other