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 (4)

RelevanceDateRelease Date
Nov. 09, 2005 | EOUSA | ACLU-RDI 4871
Letter from Marie A. O'Rourke, DOJ to Megan LewisU re: ACLU's FOIA Request; Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody. The letter states that the document production requested is being complied with in some parts and denied or withheld in part.
Nov. 09, 2005
Letter, Judicial
Marie A. O'Rourke
Marie A. O'Rourke
Aug. 21, 2003 | ACLU-RDI 4872

 This document contains the text of editorials and responses concerning the Patriot Act.

Nov. 09, 2005
Non-legal Memo
John D. Ashcroft, Clement Leroy Otter, William Jefferson Clinton, Patrick Leahy, Orrin Hatch, Albert Arnold Gore, Jr., Frank James Sensenbrenner, Jr. , George W. Bush, Charles E. Schumer
Yaser Esam Hamdi, Jose Padilla
May 23, 2003 | EOUSA | ACLU-RDI 4873

This memo was circulated by the government to all U.S. Attorneys around the country in response to public criticism of the Patriot Act. 

Nov. 09, 2005
Non-legal Memo
Guy A. Lewis
Guy A. Lewis, Mary Beth Buchanan, John D. Ashcroft, Patrick Leahy
Mar. 15, 2004 | Legislative | ACLU-RDI 4874

 A CRS report analyzing the law relating to the detention of two American citizens (Yaser Hamdi and Jose Padilla) as alleged "enemy combatants."

Nov. 09, 2005
Legal Memo
Jennifer K. Elsea
Jennifer K. Elsea, George W. Bush, William J. Haynes, II, Alberto R. Gonzales, Michael H. Mobbs, John D. Ashcroft
Yaser Esam Hamdi, Jose Padilla, John Walker Lindh, Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri