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 (64)

This document is a heavily redacted message concerning a White House meeting on enhanced techniques, and mentions that the Justice Department memorandum provides a legal "safe harbor" where conduct is lawful and no prosecutions will be mounted.
June 10, 2016
Non-legal Memo
Scott W. Muller
EIT
This heavily redacted memorandum contains comments from Medical Services on the Counterterrorism Detention and Investigation Program. The memorandum mentions OMS concerns about a conflict of interest in which the only individuals approved to ...
June 10, 2016
Non-legal Memo
John L. Helgerson
This Operational Review of the CIA Detainee Program finds that the program is a success and provides "unique and invaluable intelligence." The review also finds that the procedures for handling detainees are "adequate and clear"and that the ...
June 10, 2016
Non-legal Memo
Henry A. Crumpton
Deputy Director for Operations
Jose A. Rodriguez, Jr.
This document is the CIA's response to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's Study of the Central Intelligence Agency's Detention and Interrogation Program. "The comments presented in this paper on The Senate Select Committee on ...
Summary of CIA activities at the Abu Ghraib prison. A handwritten note marks the summary as "D/N Talking Points." Some of the bulleted paragraphs are redacted.
Mar. 15, 2013
Non-legal Memo
Manadel Al-Jamadi, Abed Hamed Mowhoush
Partially redacted CIA memo describing a meeting held to discuss the autopsy of Iraqi detainee Manadel al-Jamadi. The document notes that al-Jamadi's right eye was blackened, that there were bruises over both of his temporal regions, that there ...
Mar. 15, 2013
Non-legal Memo
Manadel Al-Jamadi
Physical assault, General
CIA summary of 60 Minutes program on detainee abuse in Iraq. The summary details the program's review of the released Abu Ghraib photos and some of the U.S. army officials involved in the scandal.
CIA memo about a "Detainee Working Group" organized to coordinate the CIA's response to external inquiry concerning its "actual and alleged detention, debriefing, interrogation, and rendition practices." The memo lays out the working group's ...
Mar. 15, 2013
Non-legal Memo
George J. Tenet
CIA non-legal memorandum detailing an attempt to reach a person, whose name is redacted, by telephone on May 12, 2004.
CIA-OGC memo indicating that [Redacted] of the OGC initiated contact with the prosecutor in Fort Carson, Colorado Springs, Colorado.