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)

This document is a CIA Memo drafted for the Deputy Director for Operations via the Associate Deputy Director for Operations/Counterintelligence. The previous release of this document (on June 13, 2016) included more redactions such as Bruce ...
This June 22, 2007 email re: EIT briefing for SECSTATE discusses the meeting Mitchell and Jessen had with John Rizzo and Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice (General Counsel John Bellenger also attended) to discuss two EITs and Common Article III. ...
Sept. 29, 2016
Email
James Mitchell , Bruce Jessen, John A. Rizzo, Condoleeza Rice
EIT, Sleep deprivation, Nudity
This report details the investigation into the death of Gul Rahman. This re-released report includes a description of psychologist Bruce Jessen and his role in the interrogation of Gul Rahman. A version of this document was re-released in ...
Report from the Office of Inspector General on Counterterrorism Detention and Interrogation Activities from September 2001-October 2003, specifically focusing on the use of Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (EITs). In September 2016, a version ...
This document, prepared by the Chief of Medical Services, summarizes and reflects upon the rendition, detention and interrogation program. The findings include that in a particular no evidence was found that the use of waterboard produced ...
This paper written by James Mitchell and John Jessen discusses interrogation resistance techniques described in Al Qaeda training documents, how to recognize when these techniques are being employed, and strategies for developing countermeasures.
Sept. 26, 2016
Non-legal Memo
James Mitchell and John Jessen
James Mitchell , Bruce Jessen
This cable states that the use of EITs requires that a psychological assessment of records, made only by a staff psychologist be completed about the proposed subject before techniques are authorized, and that psychological interrogation ...
Sept. 26, 2016
Cable
EIT
This CIA cable discusses the strategy for the post-isolation phase of the Abu Zubaydah interrogation and provides details on Abu Zubaydah's current status. The cable notes that the post-isolation strategy may include time in the "confinement ...
Sept. 26, 2016
Cable
James Mitchell , Bruce Jessen
Abu Zubaydah
SERE, Cramped confinement, Isolation
This cable provides formal authorization to proceed with portions of the next phase of Abu Zubaydah's interrogation, which include "more aggressive techniques" in order to obtain information, that the interrogation team concludes he is ...
This cable includes the text of the January 28, 2003 DCI approved "Guidelines on Interrogations Conducted Pursuant to the Presidential Memorandum of Notification of 17 September 2001". The cable also asks that all personnel involved in ...