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 (27)

RelevanceDateRelease Date
Mar. 14, 2003 | OLC | ACLU-RDI 5018

This legal memo from the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) of the Justice Department to the Department of Defense analyzes the legal standards governing military interrogations of "alien unlawful combatans" held outside the United ...

Apr. 01, 2008
Legal Memo
John C. Yoo
William J. Haynes, II
John C. Yoo, William J. Haynes, II, Timothy E. Flanigan, Alberto R. Gonzales, Patrick Philbin, Jay S. Bybee, Daniel J. Bryant, Robert J. Delahunty, Ari Fleischer, William Howard Taft, IV, John B. Bellinger, III, James C. Ho, Daniel Dell'Orto
Dec. 11, 2003 | NSA | ACLU-RDI 4709
This is a fax cover sheet without attached pages.
June 08, 2005
Letter
Brad Wiegmann
Alberto Gonzalez | Jack L. Goldsmith | Patrick Philbin | Edward R. Cummings | William R. Gade | David Leitch | Whit Cobb
John B. Wiegmann, Alberto R. Gonzales, Jack L. Goldsmith, Patrick Philbin, Whit Cobb, Edward R. Cummings, William R. Gade
June 18, 2004 | DOS | ACLU-RDI 4715

National Security Council fax cover page with the message: "Please review and provide any comnments/clearance by noon on Monday, June 21, 2004. Thank you," sent by John B. Bellinger, III. No additional comments or attachments.

June 08, 2005
Letter
John B. Bellinger
William J. Haynes, II | William Howard Taft, IV | Jack L. Goldsmith | Patrick Philbin | Alberto Gonzalez | David S. Addington
John B. Bellinger, III, William J. Haynes, II, William Howard Taft, IV, Jack L. Goldsmith, Patrick Philbin, Alberto R. Gonzales, David S. Addington
Feb. 24, 2004 | EOP | ACLU-RDI 4697
White House memo from Alberto R. Gonzalez, Counsel to the President, concerning detention Issues in the War on Terrorism.
May 04, 2005
Non-legal Memo
Alberto Gonzalez
George W. Bush
George W. Bush, Alberto R. Gonzales, Donald H. Rumsfeld
Yaser Esam Hamdi, Jose Padilla
June 22, 2004 | DOS | ACLU-RDI 3835
Email discusses and includes a press release of a press briefing with Judge Alberto Gonzales. Judge Gonzales discusses, generally, the war on terror.
Dec. 30, 2004
Email
Thomas A. Johnson
Ed Cummings | Christopher N. Camponovo
Thomas A. Johnson, Edward R. Cummings, Christopher N. Camponovo, Alberto R. Gonzales, Russell K. LaMotte, Jacob K. Cogan, Rosemary A. DiCarlo, Janis Chapman-Gates, Susan P. Suh, Richard Grenell , Monica L. Cummings, Eric L. Owens , Daniel Dell'Orto, Keith B. Alexander, George W. Bush, William J. Haynes, II, Jay S. Bybee, John C. Yoo, Scott McClellan, James T. Hill, Mary Walker, Geoffrey D. Miller, John P. Abizaid, Donald H. Rumsfeld, Newt Minow, Lloyd Cutler
Mohammed al Qahtani, Jose Padilla, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed
May 17, 2004 | DOS | ACLU-RDI 3994
This State Department memo gives the State Dept.'s official position on the question of detainees/ Geneva Conventions: the Geneva Conventions apply to the conflict w/ Al Qaeda but not with the Taliban; Neither Al-Qaeda nor Taliban detainees have ...
Dec. 30, 2004
Non-legal Memo
Alberto R. Gonzales, Colin L. Powell, William Howard Taft, IV
May 16, 2004 | DOS | ACLU-RDI 4055
Emails discuss a news article and a Meet the Press interview. The original email states "Newsweek reports that they have obtained a series of OLC memos from the fall of 2001 forward, quotes a State Department lawyer as saying "we were horrified" ...
Dec. 30, 2004
Email
JoAnn J. Dolan
JoAnn J. Dolan | Edward R. Cummings | Todd F. Buchwald | James H. Thessin
JoAnn J. Dolan, Edward R. Cummings, Todd F. Buchwald, James H. Thessin, Alberto R. Gonzales, Colin L. Powell, William Howard Taft, IV, John C. Yoo