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 (41)

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 ...

Executive Summary discussing the U.S. Southern Command's request to use additional interrogation techniques. On April 16, 2003, the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, approved the following techniques: change of scenery down, which was ...
This email is a response to a Bureau wide memo sent by Steve McCraw to illicit information from FBI agents who toured through Guantanamo Bay to report any suspected or witnessed abuse of detainees at Guantanamo Bay. This FBI agent states that he ...
Jan. 02, 2007
Non-legal Memo, Email
Steven C. McCraw
Stress positions, Isolation, Dietary manipulation, Environmental manipulation, Light or sound, Temperature, Other
Heavily redacted memo reviewing allegations of abuse of a detainee that was turned over to the Department of Defense on May 23, 2003. On June 17, 2003, he was taken to an isolation block where one other detainee was being held. His new room had ...
June 15, 2006
Non-legal Memo
Cramped confinement, Isolation, Dietary manipulation, Environmental manipulation, Temperature
This report by a DAIG Team interviewed 24 individuals and conducted 4 sensing sessions consisting of 23 Soldiers. All Soldiers interviewed and sensed were given surveys to assess factors associated with combat stress. The inspection took place ...
Questionnaire asked the Major forty-six questions regarding soldier training, soldier morale and the treatment of detainees. [Handwriting illegible] [contents redacted]. Described preparation for detainee operations and treatment. Stated that ...
July 15, 2005
Interview (Questionnaire)
Isolation, Dietary manipulation

General Bantz J. Craddock, Commander United States Southern Command, ordered an AR 15-6 investigation into alleged instances of abuse at Guantanamo. He appointed Brigadier General John T. Furlow and Lieutenant General Randall M. Schmidt to ...

A memo from Secretary Rumsfeld approving a set of interrogation techniques, including some that it admits may be "inconsistent with" provisions of the Geneva Conventions.  The techniques include "Pride and Ego Down," ...