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 (4791)

RelevanceDateRelease Date
Aug. 16, 2002 | ACLU-RDI 6821
This document contains a citizen's letter to President Bush voicing disapproval that Afghan prisoners are not treated like prisoners of war and includes an attached article from the San Francisco Chronicle. The document also contains an August ...
May 15, 2012
Letter
George W. Bush
Anne Crowther
Feb. 07, 2002 | WH | ACLU-RDI 6822
This February 7, 2002 memorandum announces to the vice president, secretary of state, attorney general, CIA director, and others that the President accepts the legal conclusions of the Department of Justice that the Geneva Conventions do not ...
May 15, 2012
Non-legal Memo
George W. Bush
Richard B. Cheney
Colin L. Powell, Condoleeza Rice, Jay B. Stephens, Andrew Card, George J. Tenet, Richard B. Myers
Feb. 15, 2006 | DOS | ACLU-RDI 5000

A State Department memo addressing whether Article 16 of the Convention Against Torture applies to the CIA's interrogations in foreign countries. The State Department determined that the prohibitions against torture do apply, despite its ...

Apr. 03, 2012
Legal Memo
Phillip Zelikow
Phillip Zelikow
EIT, Use of water, Waterboarding, Water dousing, Physical assault, Face slap or insult slap, Walling, Stress positions, Cramped confinement, Sleep deprivation, Dietary manipulation, Nudity
June 12, 2006 | DOS | ACLU-RDI 5896
DOS Cable from the US Embassy New Deli, India to DOS Washington re: Media Reactions June 10-12, 2006. The Cable includes a summary of media reactions under the following headings: Guantánamo Bay- "US is under pressure to defend 3 jail suicides", ...
June 19, 2006 | DOS | ACLU-RDI 5904
DOS Cable from the US Embassy New Delhi, India to DOS Washington, re: Media Reactions June 17-19, 2006. The Cable includes sixteen (16) news articles from Indian New outlets and features the headline Global War on Terror, with several news ...
Sept. 07, 2007 | DOS | ACLU-RDI 5908
This DOS Cable from U.S. Geneva Mission to DOS Washington contains a letter from Special Rapporteurs regarding the health and detention conditions of Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility detainees, and specifically, Samil al-Haj, a national of Sudan ...
Oct. 28, 2011
Legal Memo, Cable, Letter
Samil Al-Haj
Aug. 18, 2006 | DOS | ACLU-RDI 5912
This DOS Cable from the US Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan to the DOS Washington describes the Pakistani news coverage of matters concerning US policy, and matters of interest to the US government for August 2006.
June 12, 2006 | DOS | ACLU-RDI 5900
This document is a State Department Cable to Embassies discussing the apparent suicide of three (3) Guantanamo Bay detainees on June 10, 2006. The Detainees: Yasser Al Zahrani; Mana Shaman Allabardi Al Tabi; and Ali Abdullah Ahmed each apparently ...
Feb. 07, 2007 | DOS | ACLU-RDI 5915
This DOS letter concerns the DOS's Accountability Review Board Review inquiry in to the Deaths of seven (7) Personnel in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Oct. 28, 2011
Letter, Other
Harry K. Thompson
July 10, 2007 | DOS | ACLU-RDI 5907
This DOS Cable from the US Mission Geneva to DOS Washington contains a letter from Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions, Philip Alston, regarding the June 10, 2006 death of Guantanamo Bay detainee Ahmed Ali ...
Oct. 28, 2011
Legal Memo, Cable, Letter
Ali Abdullah Ahmed, Yasser Al Zahrani, Mana Shaman Allabardi Al Tabi