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 (47)

State Department cable summarizes discussion at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe meeting on Human Dimension Implementation Meeting (HDIM) dedicated to rule-of-law issues. The US took "substantial criticism" for its ...
Dec. 23, 2004
Cable
Colin L. Powell
Colin L. Powell
State Department cable to Washington describing a letter left off at the U.S. Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey by a human rights group written to President Bush with accusations of human rights violations and actions in contradiction to the Geneva ...
Dec. 23, 2004
Cable
George W. Bush, Colin L. Powell
State Department cable from Washington to a U.S. Embassy acknowledging receipt of a diplomatic note concerning certain Guantanamo Detainees. The cable states "The national[s] at Guantanamo is being held as ' an enemy combatant[s] and are being ...
Dec. 23, 2004
Cable
Colin L. Powell
Ronald W. Miller
State Department cable with a letter from Sec. Powell's response to inquiry regarding the welfare of two men detaineed at Guantanamo Bay. The points Sec. Powell makes concerning the proposed trial of any accused held at Guantanamo are: there is a ...
Dec. 23, 2004
Cable
Colin L. Powell
Colin L. Powell
State Department cable to Washington summarizing a November, 2003 meeting between six (6) members of Congress and ten (10) members of the European Parliament. Topics included Iraq, the War on Terror, and Guantanamo.
Dec. 23, 2004
Cable
Colin L. Powell
Colin L. Powell
State Department cable from Brussels Mission to Washington summarizing the results of the European Council meeting. The European Parliament adopted non-binding resolution lauding the capture of Saddam Hussein and called for a return of ...
Dec. 23, 2004
Cable
Colin L. Powell
Colin L. Powell
Letter from Margaret P. Grafeld, DOS to Amrit Singh, ACLU re: the ACLU's FOIA Request. Letter states that the document production requested is being complied with in some parts and denied or withheld in part.
Dec. 23, 2004
Letter, Judicial
Margaret P. Grafeld
Margaret P. Grafeld