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 (124)

This document is an undated draft memorandum analyzing whether the McCain Amendment would prevent the CIA from using its "enhanced interrogation techniques." The memo concludes that the McCain Amendment would not do so because (1) ...

Summary of OLC legal advice to the Counsel to the President, the CIA, and the DoD regarding the CIA's and DoD's interrogation programs. [OLC Vaughn Index # 159]

An OLC summary of three OLC opinions issued to the CIA in May 2005 regarding the legality of the CIA's interrogation program. Those three opinions are listed as "Related Documents." [OLC Vaughn Index # 164]

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 email regarding a forwarded letter. The letter states that the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command is conducting an investigation into allegations that two FBI agents were involved in the assault of a civilian detained at the Baghdad ...
Apr. 27, 2009
Email
Steven C. McCraw
Steven C. McCraw, Toni M. Fogle
Physical assault
This email includes a chain of forwarded emails expressing an Army CID's desire to interview FBI special agents who are witnesses in an investigation surrounding allegations of prisoner abuse. The prisoner alleges to have been tortured in "an act ...
Apr. 27, 2009
Email
Toni M. Fogle
Use of water, Physical assault, Stress positions, Other

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 ...