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 (41)

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 (with the ...
Aug. 31, 2016
Legal Memo, Letter
Scott W. Muller
John B. Bellinger | James B. Comey
James B. Comey, John B. Bellinger, III, Donald H. Rumsfeld, Scott W. Muller
Abu Zubaydah
EIT, Use of water, Waterboarding
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 ...
CIA copy of Washington Post article discussing prisons in Iraq, the CIA's interrogations, and the use of torture and rendition.

A Vaughn index describing documents from the files of the CIA Office of the Inspector General (OIG) responsive to the ACLU's FOIA requests of October 7, 2003 and May 25, 2004. The government originally withheld all of the CIA OIG documents in ...

Aug. 31, 2009
Judicial (Vaughn Declaration/Index)
Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein
Scott W. Muller, George J. Tenet
Abu Zubaydah
EIT

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

This May 7, 2004 Special Review by the CIA’s Office of the Inspector General examines the CIA’s counterterrorism detention and interrogation activities, including the apparently unauthorized use of mock executions, a hand gun, a ...

Lengthy, but almost entirely redacted, document that apparently discusses the CIA’s detention and interrogation program for “high value targets.” The document provides some detail regarding the “standard” and ...

This CIA documents is a draft psychological assessment of Abu Zubaydah, discussing his background, personality, emotional and mental skills, strengths, motivations, and future worldview, among other things. The document is very similar to file ...

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