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 (1021)

RelevanceDateRelease Date
This January 17, 2003 memorandum provides authorization and authority for James Mitchell, Bruce Jessen, and a third interrogator, whose name is redacted, to use the "full range" of enhanced measures, including waterboarding, in addition to their ...
Dec. 20, 2016
Non-legal Memo
James Mitchell , Bruce Jessen
EIT, Waterboarding, Use of water
This May 28, 2003 email states that going forward Jim Mitchell and Bruce Jessen will be doing much less in the interrogation role and more strategic consulting work, research and program development projects, and more in the psychology role. The ...
Dec. 20, 2016
Email
Bruce Jessen, James Mitchell
Abu Zubaydah
This heavily redacted cable provides authorization and authority for Bruce Jessen and James Mitchell to use the full range of level 1 EITs and the level 2 water board. All envelope information is redacted.
Dec. 20, 2016
Non-legal Memo, Cable
Bruce Jessen, James Mitchell
EIT, Use of water, Waterboarding
A list of bullet points discussing legal principles applicable to the CIA's detention and interrogation of detainees, including the use of the "enhanced interrogation techniques." Many of the principles listed appear in the OLC's interrogation ...
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 cable states that the use of EITs requires that a psychological assessment of records, made only by a staff psychologist be completed about the proposed subject before techniques are authorized, and that psychological interrogation ...
Sept. 26, 2016
Cable
EIT
This document is a CIA Memo drafted for the Deputy Director for Operations via the Associate Deputy Director for Operations/Counterintelligence. The memo contains background information related to the treatment and condition of detainees as it ...
N/A
June 13, 2016
Non-legal Memo, Cable
EIT
N/A
June 13, 2016
Non-legal Memo, Cable
EIT
This report, issued by John Helgerson, examines whether CIA interrogators used unauthorized interrogation techniques on high value detainees, including Abd al-Rahman Al-Nashiri.
Non-legal Memo, Oversight Report, Investigative File
John Helgerson
John Helgerson, James Pavitt
Abd Al-Rahim Al-Nashiri
EIT, Use of water, Waterboarding, Physical assault, Threat, Sleep deprivation