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 (6709)

Emails between DOS Officials discussing the death of an Egyptian scientist, Mohamed Abdel Moneim Al-Azmeerly, who was killed while in U.S. custody at Abu Ghraib. There is concern that the death of Al-Azmeerly will gain publicity in Egypt and ...
Emails between DOS Officials discussing the death of an Egyptian scientist, Mohamed Abdel Moneim Al-Azmeerly, who was killed while in U.S. custody at Abu Ghraib. Joel M. Rubin wrote that there was not much discussion in Egypt on Al-Azmeerly's ...
Email from a DOS Official to DOJ Officials. The email includes a New York Times article, which discusses the Justice Department's investigation into the CIA and their contractors for their possible involvement in the death of three detainees, one ...
Nov. 23, 2004
Email
JoAnn J. Dolan
David Nahmias | Patrick Philbin
Patrick Philbin, David E. Nahmias, JoAnn J. Dolan, Pat Roberts, Antonio Taguba
Abed Hamed Mowhoush
Letter from Tausif Paracha, U.S. citizen, to Colin L. Powell regarding the detainment of his/her uncle, Saifullah Paracha. Mr. Paracha was taken into custody on July 5th by U.S. soldiers and according to a letter sent by the International ...
Nov. 23, 2004
Letter
Colin L. Powell
Saifullah Paracha
Letter from International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) to Mike McKinley, Deputy Assistant U.S. Secretary of State re: Persons Detained in Afghanistan. The letter states "Dear Mike: Enclosed is an ICRC Verbal Note concerning the situation of ...
Nov. 23, 2004
Letter
Mike McKinley
John B. Bellinger, III, Mike McKinley
DOS Note discussing letters sent by UN Rapporteurs asking for explanations regarding allegations of torture at detention facilities in Iraq. Refers to one letter that discusses the detention of four Iraqis allegedly being held incommunicado in Basra.
Nov. 23, 2004
Notes
Kim R. Holmes
Kim R. Holmes, L. Paul Bremer, Jeffrey DeLaurentis
This State Department memo appears to be a set of talking points to respond to possible questions relating to Guantanamo. The memo discusses the classification of detainees and explains why the Al-Qaida and Taliban detainees do not qualify for ...
Nov. 23, 2004
Non-legal Memo
Katherine M. Gorove, Harry R. Melone
Letter from David N. Kelley, DOJ, to Lawrence S. Lustberg, of Gibbons, Del Deo, Dolan, Griffinger & Vecchione, P.C., attorneys for the ACLU re: the ACLU's FOIA Request. The letter states that the document production requested is being complied ...
Nov. 23, 2004
Letter, Judicial
Sean H. Lane | David N. Kelley | Peter M. Skinner
Lawrence S. Lustberg
David N. Kelley, Sean H. Lane, Peter M. Skinner