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 (33)

A background paper on the CIA's combined use of interrogation techniques, addressed to Daniel Levin, Acting Assistant Attorney General. The document states that "Effective interrogation is based on the concept of using both physical and ...

A fax (sent January 15, 2005) from the CIA to the OLC of the December 2004 OMS Guidelines on Medical and Psychological Support to Detainee Rendition, Interrogation, and Detention. The document is heavily redacted but describes the enhanced ...

An undated CIA memo arguing that the CIA's interrogation program does not violate the Convention Against Torture, 18 U.S.C. §§ 2340-2340A, or 18 U.S.C. § 2441. Part of the memo relies upon the contention that so long as ...

Lengthy, but almost entirely redacted, document that apparently discusses the CIA’s detention and interrogation program for “high value targets.” The document provides some detail regarding the “standard” and ...

Report on an informal investigation conducted by Brigadier General Richard P. Formica into specific allegations of detainee abuse within CJSOTF-AP [Combined Joint Special Operating Task Force – Arabian Peninsula] and 5th SF [Special Forces] Group ...

Approximately 73-year-old Iraqi woman reported that she had been subjected to assault and sexual abuse, including being sodomized with a stick and touched in private areas; that she was forced to "swim" in water thrown on ...

This report discusses an investigation into the alleged abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib Detention Facility. The investigation was ordered initially by LTG Ricardo S. Sanchez, Commander, Combined Joint Task Force Seven (CJTF-7). LTG Sanchez ...

This August 1, 2002 OLC memo from Jay Bybee to John Rizzo discusses whether certain proposed conduct in the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah would violate the prohibition against torture found at Section 2340A of title 18 of the U.S. Code. The memo ...