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.

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 This document contains the text of editorials and responses concerning the Patriot Act.

 A CRS report analyzing the law relating to the detention of two American citizens (Yaser Hamdi and Jose Padilla) as alleged "enemy combatants."

This White House memo discusses the treatment of detainees taken in the War on Terror and how they are to be classified and the determination of their legal status.
This memo is to address questions and concerns over the status and treatment of Guantanamo detainees. The memo states that: 1) the U.S. does not permit, tolerate or condone torture; 2) Detainees get excellent medical care; 3) the Al-Qaeda ...
June 08, 2005
Cable
Colin L. Powell
Colin L. Powell, George W. Bush
This State Department Fact Sheet on the President's establishment of Military Commissions lists talking points on addressing issues and questions that might arise. The points highlight the following: i) The Order applies only to non-U.S. ...
June 08, 2005
Non-legal Memo
George W. Bush, Donald H. Rumsfeld
Presidential Military Order concerning the Detention, Treatment and Trial of Certain Non-Citizens in the War against Terrorism. The Order is the basis for the authority to apprehend, detain and place on trial via Military Commissions persons who ...
June 08, 2005
Non-legal Memo
George W. Bush
George W. Bush, Donald H. Rumsfeld
Letter from Kenneth Roth the Executive Director of Human Rights Watch to President George W. Bush concerning the accusations of torture and mistreatment of detainees published in an article in the Washington Post newspaper on December 26, 2002. ...
June 08, 2005
Letter
Kenneth Roth
George W. Bush
George W. Bush
Letter from attorney Dennis Edney, attorney for Omar Ahmed Khadr, a detainee held at Camp X-Ray, Guantanamo. The letter is a request for Mr. Graham to take any and all available steps to assert and protect Omar's basic human rights as a Canadian ...
June 08, 2005
Letter
Dennis Edney
Bill Graham
George W. Bush
Omar Ahmed Khadr

Presidential order authorizing detention of individuals and trial by military commission. From http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/11/20011113-27.html.

June 01, 2005
Non-legal Memo
George W. Bush
George W. Bush
This White House memo describes U.S. policy toward detainees at Guantanamo.  States that they are not entitled to POW treatment but that they are treated humanely and given many of the protections that POWs are given.

June 01, 2005
Non-legal Memo
George W. Bush
George W. Bush