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 (125)

An OLC memo concluding that the CIA’s proposed interrogation plan for Abu Zubaydah — which contemplates methods including “insects placed in a confinement box” and “the waterboard” — does not violate ...

A Vaughn index of CIA records, including cables sent from the field to headquarters, relating to the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah.  The CIA stated that the index includes the first half of the records created in August 2002 that describe ...

May 01, 2009
Judicial (Vaughn Declaration/Index)
John L. McPherson
Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein
Abu Zubaydah

The Vaughn declaration of CIA Director Leon Panetta, discussing CIA records that describe the contents of the videotapes destroyed by the CIA.  The declaration notes that the records primarily concern the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah and ...

June 09, 2009
Judicial (Affidavit/Declaration, Vaughn Declaration/Index)
Leon E. Panetta
Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein
Leon E. Panetta
Abu Zubaydah
EIT

The CIA's Vaughn Index of records describing the contents of the interrogation videotapes destroyed by the CIA.  This Index was attached to Leon Panetta's Vaughn Declaration of the same date.  Most of the records listed in the Index ...

June 09, 2009
Judicial (Vaughn Declaration/Index)
Leon E. Panetta
Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein
Abu Zubaydah
EIT, Waterboarding, Use of water

A letter providing legal advice regarding whether the conditions of detention at certain oversears CIA facilities are consistent with the applicable standards of the DTA.  It concludes that the conditions of confinement did not constitute ...

A draft psychological assessment of Abu Zubaydah faxed to John Yoo from the CIA.  The assessment provides background information ("for at least a decade, subject has lived and worked within an environment that has condoned, nurtured, ...

Aug. 24, 2009
Non-legal Memo, Medical (Psychological)
John C. Yoo
John C. Yoo
Abu Zubaydah

This letter from Scott Muller explains that Jack Goldsmith's letter to George Tenet, Director of the CIA, was forwarded to the Inspector General and that his office would decide whether the suggested changes to the Special Review would be ...

Aug. 24, 2009
Letter
Scott W. Muller
Jack L. Goldsmith
Scott W. Muller, Jack L. Goldsmith, George J. Tenet, John L. Helgerson
Abu Zubaydah
EIT

This letter from Scott Muller to John Bellinger concerns further discussions that clarified the approval of certain interrogation techniques. He writes, "the authorized techniques are those previously approved for use with Abu Zubaydah ...

Aug. 24, 2009
Letter
Scott W. Muller
John Bellinger | James B. Comey
Scott W. Muller, John B. Bellinger, III, James B. Comey, Donald H. Rumsfeld
Abu Zubaydah
EIT, Use of water, Waterboarding