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 (130)

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An email between members of the Staff Judge Advocate, forwarding a Washington Post article titled "Documents Helped Sow Abuse, Army Report Finds," from August 30, 2004.

Testimony of Sergeant Michael Smith, Army Dog Handler. In discussing how the dog(s) under his control are used. SGT Smith said "Dogs are used at the last level, before deadly force, to prevent escape. I've never had to use my dog in my uses of ...
Oct. 19, 2004
Interview (Transcript)
Michael Smith, Thomas Pappas
Use of phobias
Testimony of Staff Sergeant Robert Elliot, Squad Leader, 372nd Military Police Company. SSG Elliot's job as a Squad Leader and Assistant NCOIC was to keep accountability of inmates, receive new prisoners, the in processing and out processing of ...
This is the transcript of Gen. Taguba’s deposition of Gen. Pappas re: Abu Ghraib prison. It contains specific Q&A’s about responsibility for the security and different elements of prison/base operations. Abuse of detainees is brought out as well ...
Interrogation Rules of Engagement for the 205th MI Brigade, Iraq. Sets forth techniques for use on detainees, of which, including isolation for more than 30 days and the presence of military working dogs, requires the Commanding General's ...

This report reflects the findings of an investigation, led by Major General Antonio Taguba, into the allegations of detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib prison. The investigation took place in February of 2004 and concluded that numerous instances of ...

Investigations into numerous alleged abuses at Abu Ghraib Prison and Al-Ademeya Palace based on reports from CACI and Titan translation employees. Alleged abuses include the physical beatings and humiliation of various detainees, forced exercise ...
Investigation prompted by NYT article containing victim's allegations of torture and abuse during detention in Abu Ghraib from November 29 through December 31, 2003. Investigation concludes there is not “sufficient evidence to prove or disprove ...
Detainee alleged that he was arrested by U.S. forces and placed in a hole in the ground with other detainees at an unknown location in Samara, Iraq for about three days, then threatened with death and taken to a room where he was placed on a box ...
Dec. 30, 2004
Investigative File (CID)
John Peterson, Jacqueline J. Scott
Use of water, Other, Physical assault, General, Threat, Assault/death, Use of phobias, Nudity, Other Humiliation, Forced grooming, Other

Approximately 73-year-old Iraqi woman reported that she had been subjected to assault and sexual abuse, including being sodomized with a stick and touched in private areas; that she was forced to "swim" in water thrown on ...