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 (45)

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 ...

This document was faxed from the CIA to Steven Bradbury (OLC). It describes the CIA's technique of "horizontal sleep deprivation," wherein a detainee is placed on a large blanket on the floor and chained such that he cannot sleep. ...

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 ...

This May 7, 2004 Special Review by the CIA’s Office of the Inspector General examines the CIA’s counterterrorism detention and interrogation activities, including the apparently unauthorized use of mock executions, a hand gun, a ...

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 ...

Blank “Enhanced Pressures” sheet used in waterboarding training. [OIG Remand Vaughn #Other-103]

Aug. 24, 2009
Non-legal Memo
EIT, Use of water, Waterboarding

The CIA's Vaughn Index of records describing the contents of the interrogation videotapes destroyed by the CIA.  This Index was attached to Leon Panetta's Vaughn Declaration of the same date.  Most of the records listed in the Index ...

June 09, 2009
Judicial (Vaughn Declaration/Index)
Leon E. Panetta
Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein
Abu Zubaydah
EIT, Waterboarding, Use of water

Page 36 of the CIA Inspector General's Special Review of the CIA's interrogation program.  The page describes the interrogation videotapes destroyed by the CIA on November 9, 2005.  The page was produced to the ACLU as part of the ...

Mar. 06, 2009
Oversight Report
John L. Helgerson
EIT, Waterboarding, Use of water

(A CIA affidavit states that this was a 1-page memo dated Aug. 4, 2004 from CIA to OLC and that it contained "communications from the CIA to OLC on a matter in which the CIA requested legal advice from OLC.")  The document ...

July 24, 2008
Legal Memo
Richard J. Durbin
EIT, Waterboarding, Use of water
A heavily redacted memorandum from the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence to the Deputy Director for Operations, the DCI Counterterrorist Center, and Senior Deputy General Counsel re the Interrogation of Abu Zabaydah.
May 27, 2008
Non-legal Memo
Abu Zubaydah
EIT, Waterboarding, Use of water