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)

Inter-American Commission on Human Rights litigation requesting that the Commission take measures to have the legal status of detainees held at Guantanamo be determined by a competent court, and to protect against the torture of detainees.
Dec. 30, 2004
Judicial (Pleading)
Physical assault, Assault/death, Stress positions, Isolation, Temperature, Threat, Environmental manipulation

FBI letter from T. J. Harrington, Deputy Assistant Director, FBI to Gen. Ryder Major General US Army Criminal Investigation Command describing three (3) situations observed by FBI agents of highly aggressive interrogation techniques/assault ...

Investigation into a recordable compact disc containing images of suspected detainee abuse in in Afghanistan between January 11 and January 19, 2004. The images on the CD depicted U.S. soldiers holding weapons on hooded and bound local ...

Nov. 08, 2004
Investigative File (CID)
Physical assault, Threat, Assault/death, Environmental manipulation, Hooding/Goggling

This report reflects the findings of an investigation, led by Major General Antonio Taguba, into the allegations of detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib prison. The investigation took place in February of 2004 and concluded that numerous instances of ...

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 ...