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 (32)

This undated draft OLC memo summarizes OLC opinions regarding interrogation of detainees. Much of it is similar to the other OLC memos concerning the CIA's interrogation program, with several exceptions. For example, on page 2, the memo notes ...

An OLC memo to the CIA addressing whether the use of "twelve particular interrogation techniques (attention grasp, walling, facial hold, facial slap (insult slap), cramped confinement, wall standing, stress positions, sleep depravation, ...

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 ...

This document is the Charge Sheet against Sergeant Scott A. McKenzie for his Court Martial on abusing Iraqi detainees. It includes the charges; Articles of the UCMJ he is accused of violating; details of the charges; Sgt. McKenzie's plea to each ...
July 01, 2005
Legal Memo, UCMJ (Court-Martial)
David D. McKiernan
Scott A. McKenzie
Face slap or insult slap, Walling, General, Assault/death, Stress positions, Use of phobias, Other Humiliation, Physical assault, Threat
This Memo from the Army is dismissing, with prejudice, charges brought in a Court-Martial proceeding in exchange for the soldier pleading guilty to two (2) charges brought in an Article 15 proceeding. The investigation was in regards to ...
Mar. 23, 2005
Legal Memo, Photograph, Interview (Statement), UCMJ (Court-Martial, Article 15)
Face slap or insult slap, Walling, General, Assault/death, Physical assault, Threat
This memorandum from Assistant Attorney General John Bybee to John Rizzo provides the Office of the Assistant Attorney General's view on whether certain proposed conduct during the interrogation of al Qaeda Operative Abu Zubaydah would violate ...