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Torture in the United States

Detainees wearing orange jumpsuits crouch down within a barbed wire protected area.

5 things to know about Guantanamo Bay on its 115th birthday

Global Politics

The infamous naval base at Guantanamo Bay is quietly commemorating its 115th anniversary in the shadows of alleged torture that was “contrary” to American values, according to former President Barack Obama.

CIA director nominee and acting CIA Director Gina Haspel is sworn in to testify at her Senate Intelligence Committee confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill,

CIA Director Gina Haspel’s memos detailing torture declassified

Conflict
A man's image is blurred as he walks across a giant marble seal in the floor of the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

What we know — and what we don’t — about Trump’s controversial pick to lead the CIA

Conflict & Justice
trump cia

Trump’s new pick for CIA director has a murky past with torture programs

Conflict
"Secrets, Politics and Torture" screen grab.

How the CIA helped make ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ — and shape the torture debate

Conflict
Detainees in orange jumpsuits sit in a holding area under the watchful eyes of military police during inprocessing at the temporary detention facility at Guantanamo Bay's Camp X-Ray in this January 11, 2002 file photograph.

He blew the whistle on CIA torture, and now he’s finally home from jail — and talking

Justice

Former CIA officer John Kiriakou is the man who first confirmed that the CIA was using waterboarding to torture detainees. He’s also the only person to ever go to jail over the CIA’s torture program. Now he’s home on house arrest, and speaking out about his concerns over the future of vital leaks.

Soldiers from the 35th US Volunteer Infantry subject a Filipino to the ‘water cure,’ a common ‘enhanced interrogation’ technique employed during the war to pacify the Philippines between 1899 and 1902.

America has used water to torture people for more than a century

Justice

You may not be surprised to hear that simulated drowning as a torture was first documented during the Middle Ages. But did you know it was once a common technique in US law enforcement in the early 20th century?

A US Army soldier from the 1st Infantry Division stationed in Tikrit closes the entrance of the dentention center at Forward Operating Base Danger on September 8, 2004.

Torture doesn’t work — so here’s what does

Conflict

The world now officially knows that CIA interrogators tortured and abused prisoners, but what about the men and women who did the job for the military and other parts of the government? One former Army interrogator says torture was never on the table.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein discusses the Intelligence Committee's report on the CIA's anti-terrorism tactics on December 9, 2014.

Here are four key findings from the gruesome Senate report on torture

Conflict

The conclusions reached by the Senate Intelligence Committee in a new report on so-called harsh interrogation techniques are a damning critique of the Central Intelligence Agency. Not only did the agency torture people, but it did so while lying about it and getting no value from the information it gathered.

A guard shuts the gate to the airport in Szymany, Poland, in 2005. Polish media said the airport was identified by Human Rights Watch as a potential site of alleged CIA prisons used to interrogate al-Qaeda captives.

Poles say aiding the CIA’s torture program ‘was simply being a good ally’

Justice

Poland was home to one of the secret CIA “black sites” where detainees were held and tortured. But while a new report detailed the abuses prisoners suffered, some Poles wonder why they seems to be the only country willing to take their leaders to task for their involvement.