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 (54)

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]

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) ...

This document (identical to ACLU-RDI 4589, 4590, and 4592) is an undated draft memo from the OLC analyzing whether the CIA interrogation program would violate Article 16 of the Convention Against Torture. The document argues that they do not ...

Aug. 24, 2009
Legal Memo
EIT, SERE

This document (identical to ACLU-RDI 4589, 4592, and 4593) is an undated draft memo from the OLC analyzing whether the CIA interrogation program would violate Article 16 of the Convention Against Torture. The document argues that they do not ...

Aug. 24, 2009
Legal Memo
EIT, SERE

This page of handwritten notes of an OLC attorney lists documents (primarily OLC memos) related to the CIA interrogation program. [OLC Vaughn Index #129]

Aug. 24, 2009
Notes
Alberto R. Gonzales, John C. Yoo, Jay S. Bybee, John A. Rizzo, William J. Haynes, II
Abu Zubaydah
EIT

This document (identical to ACLU-RDI 4590, 4592, and 4593) is an undated draft memo from the OLC analyzing whether the CIA interrogation program would violate Article 16 of the Convention Against Torture. The document argues that they do not ...

Aug. 24, 2009
Legal Memo
EIT, SERE

An OLC memo from Daniel Levin (Acting Assistant Attorney General) to John Ashcroft (Attorney General) and James Comey (Deputy Attorney General), updating them on the status of interrogation advice. The letter contains sections for general ...

An OLC memo to the CIA addressing whether the use of four enhanced techniques, "dietary manipulation, nudity, water dousing, and abdominal slaps," in the interrogation of [redacted] would violate the law. The letter concludes that ...

Aug. 24, 2009
Legal Memo, Letter
Daniel B. Levin
John A. Rizzo
Daniel B. Levin, John A. Rizzo
EIT, Use of water, Water dousing, Physical assault, Stomach/abdominal slap, Dietary manipulation, Nudity

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, ...

This letter from Levin to Rizzo addresses the use of waterboarding on a specific detainee. It concludes that "although it is a close and difficult question, the use of the waterboard technique in the contemplated interrogation of ...

Aug. 24, 2009
Legal Memo, Letter
Daniel B. Levin
John A. Rizzo
John A. Rizzo, Daniel B. Levin, Jay S. Bybee
EIT, Use of water, Waterboarding