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 (143)

This cable provides a report of day 6 of the cycle of interrogation carried out on detainee Abu Zubaydah on August 9, 2002. It includes details of interrogators using a combination of waterboarding, walling, cramped confinement, and hooding in ...
This is a general report on a cycle of interrogation carried out on August 10, 2002 on detainee Abu Zubaydah. It includes an overview of techniques used (including the waterboard, walling, hooding, and cramped confinement), in addition to brief ...
Dec. 20, 2016
Cable
Abu Zubaydah
EIT, Use of water, Waterboarding, Physical assault, Walling, Cramped confinement
This cable provides a report of day 8 of the cycle of interrogation carried out on detainee Abu Zubaydah on August 11, 2002. It includes details of interrogators using a combination of waterboarding, walling, cramped confinement, and hooding in ...
This cable provides a report of day 9 of the cycle of interrogation carried out on detainee Abu Zubaydah on August 12, 2002. It includes details of interrogators using a combination of waterboarding, walling, cramped confinement, hooding, and ...
This cable provides a report of day 12 of the cycle of interrogation carried out on detainee Abu Zubaydah on August 15, 2002. Though large portions of this report are redacted, it includes details of interrogators using a combination of ...
Dec. 20, 2016
Cable
Abu Zubaydah
EIT, Use of water, Waterboarding, Cramped confinement, Environmental manipulation, Hooding/Goggling
This is a memo detailing the visit of a three-person behavioral interrogation team's visit to Abu Zubaydah's holding compound and "evolving" interrogation room. It includes details of the team's suggestions for cell modifications, including "the ...
Dec. 20, 2016
Cable
Abu Zubaydah
Light or sound, Environmental manipulation
This CIA cable to the Immediate ALEC Info Director discusses medical care in the event that Abu Zubaydah has a heart attack or another serious medical condition and plans for cremation if he dies. The cable also states that the detainee must ...
Dec. 20, 2016
Cable
Abu Zubaydah
EIT, Isolation
This heavily redacted paper "discusses the techniques and strategies for resisting interrogation described in captured al-Qa'ida training manuals and other documents. It suggests methods for recognizing when sophisticated resistance to ...
Dec. 20, 2016
Non-legal Memo, Cable
Abu Zubaydah
EIT
This redacted memo, sent from HQS/ALEC to the CIA, explains that the interrogation process with Abu Zubaydah is "at somewhat of a standstill" and presents options for proceeding in such a way that increases pressure on Zubaydah to provide ...
Dec. 20, 2016
Cable
Abu Zubaydah
EIT, Threat, Family/others, Cramped confinement
This heavily redacted message describes one instance (starting on August 4, 2002) of "the aggressive phase" of high value captive interrogation and recommends its use as a template for future interrogation. Nothing new has been disclosed since ...
Dec. 20, 2016
Non-legal Memo, Cable
ALEC Info Director
EIT