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 (5)

RelevanceDateRelease Date
June 26, 2004 | CIA | ACLU-RDI 5094
CIA copy of a transcript of George W. Bush's speech on the U.N. International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, emphasizing the conviction that "Torture is wrong no matter where it occurs" and that the United States must lead the fight to ...
Mar. 15, 2013
Other
George W. Bush
Sept. 19, 2009 | CIA | ACLU-RDI 4994

A Vaughn Declaration from Wendy Hilton, CIA, relating to 171 OLC documents responsive to the ACLU's FOIA requests of October 7, 2003 and May 25, 2004. The government originally withheld 181 OLC documents in full, and Judge Hellerstein upheld ...

Sept. 21, 2009
Judicial (Affidavit/Declaration, Vaughn Declaration/Index)
Wendy M. Hilton
Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein
Wendy M. Hilton, Leon E. Panetta, Barack H. Obama, George W. Bush
EIT
Aug. 31, 2009 | CIA | ACLU-RDI 4996

A Vaughn Declaration from Wendy Hilton, CIA, relating to documents from the files of the CIA Office of the Inspector General (OIG) responsive to the ACLU's FOIA requests of October 7, 2003 and May 25, 2004. The government originally withheld ...

Aug. 31, 2009
Judicial (Affidavit/Declaration, Vaughn Declaration/Index)
Wendy M. Hilton
Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein
Wendy M. Hilton, Leon E. Panetta, Barack H. Obama, George W. Bush
EIT
May 07, 2004 | CIA-OIG | ACLU-RDI 4525

A heavily redacted version of a report authored by the CIA's Office of the Inspector General.  The report was later released in less-redacted form.  It discusses the CIA's use of the "enhanced interrogation techniques," ...

May 27, 2008
Oversight Report
John L. Helgerson
John C. Yoo, George J. Tenet, George W. Bush, John L. Helgerson, John A. Rizzo, John McLaughlin
Abu Zubaydah, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed
EIT, Use of water, Waterboarding
May 07, 2003 | WH | CIA | ACLU-RDI 5058
Press release from the White House affirming the Bush administration's belief in the Geneva Convention, but noting that Taliban detainees are not entitled to POW status and that members of al-Qaeda are not covered by the Convention.
Other
George W. Bush, Ari Fleischer