The study edition of book the Los Angeles Times called, "The most extensive review of U.S. intelligence-gathering tactics in generations." This is the complete Executive Summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee's investigation into the CIA's interrogation and detention programs -- a.k.a., The Torture Report. Based on over six million pages of secret CIA documents, the report details a covert program of secret prisons, prisoner deaths, interrogation practices, and cooperation with other foreign and domestic agencies, as well as the CIA's efforts to hide the details of the program from the White House, the Department of Justice, the Congress, and the American people. Over five years in the making, it is presented here exactly as redacted and released by the United States government on December 9, 2014, with an introduction by Daniel J. Jones, who led the Senate investigation. This special edition includes: • Large, easy-to-read format. • Almost 3,000 notes formatted as footnotes, exactly as they appeared in the original report. This allows readers to see obscured or clarifying details as they read the main text. • An introduction by Senate staffer Daniel J. Jones who led the investigation and wrote the report for the Senate Intelligence Committee, and a forward by the head of that committee, Senator Dianne Feinstein.

In December 2014, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) released a 500+ page executive summary of a 6,000 page study of the CIA's detention and interrogation of al Qa'ida terrorists. In early 2015 publishers released the study in book form and called it "the report" on "torture." Rebuttal presents the "rest of the story." In addition to reprinting the official responses from the SSCI minority and CIA, this publication also includes eight essays from senior former CIA officials who all are deeply knowledgeable about the program —and yet none of whom were interviewed by the SSCI staff during the more than four years the report was in preparation. These authors of the eight essays are George Tenet, Porter Goss, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, USAF (Ret.), John McLaughlin, Michael Morell, J. Philip Mudd, John Rizzo, and Jose A. Rodriguez, Jr.

This is a direct facsimile of the full and complete Executive Summary prepared by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence of the report titled "Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency's Detention and Interrogation Program," also know as "The Torture Report." The report includes graphic descriptions of torture.

Study of the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program - Foreword, Findings and Conclusions, and Executive Summary. The Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency's Detention and Interrogation Program, commonly known as the CIA Torture Report, is a 6,000-page report compiled by the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) about the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)'s Detention and Interrogation Program using enhanced interrogation techniques (a euphemism for torture) on detainees following the September 11 attacks in 2001. The full report has not been published, but the committee voted in April 2014 to release the recommendations, executive summary, and findings of the report. A 525-page unclassified portion of the report was released on December 9, 2014, after a presentation on the floor of the Senate by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), the chairwoman of the Select Committee on Intelligence. Over 90% of the report remains classified. The report, which took four years and $40 million to compile, focused on 2001-06. It detailed actions by CIA officials and shortcomings of the detention project. One key finding was that enhanced interrogation techniques did not help acquire actionable intelligence or gain cooperation from detainees.

Torture is banned because it is cruel and inhumane. But as Shane O’Mara writes in this account of the human brain under stress, another reason torture should never be condoned is because it does not work the way torturers assume it does. In countless films and TV shows such as Homeland and 24, torture is portrayed as a harsh necessity. If cruelty can extract secrets that will save lives, so be it. CIA officers and others conducted torture using precisely this justification. But does torture accomplish what its defenders say it does? For ethical reasons, there are no scientific studies of torture. But neuroscientists know a lot about how the brain reacts to fear, extreme temperatures, starvation, thirst, sleep deprivation, and immersion in freezing water, all tools of the torturer’s trade. These stressors create problems for memory, mood, and thinking, and sufferers predictably produce information that is deeply unreliable—and, for intelligence purposes, even counterproductive. As O’Mara guides us through the neuroscience of suffering, he reveals the brain to be much more complex than the brute calculations of torturers have allowed, and he points the way to a humane approach to interrogation, founded in the science of brain and behavior. Torture may be effective in forcing confessions, as in Stalin’s Russia. But if we want information that we can depend on to save lives, O’Mara writes, our model should be Napoleon: “It has always been recognized that this way of interrogating men, by putting them to torture, produces nothing worthwhile.”

On April 16, 2009, the Justice Department released never-before-seen secret memos describing, in graphic detail, the brutal interrogation techniques used by the CIA under the Bush administration's "war on terror." Now, for the first time, the key documents are compiled in one remarkable volume, showing that the United States government's top attorneys were instrumental in rationalizing acts of torture and cruelty, employing chillingly twisted logic and Orwellian reasoning to authorize what the law absolutely forbids. This collection gives readers an unfiltered look at the tactics approved for use in the CIA's secret overseas prisons—including forcing detainees to stay awake for eleven days straight, slamming them against walls, stripping them naked, locking them in a small box with insects to manipulate their fears, and, of course, waterboarding—and at the incredible arguments advanced to give them a green light. Originally issued in secret by the Office of Legal Counsel between 2002 and 2005, the documents collected here have been edited only to eliminate repetition. They reflect, in their own words, the analysis that guided the legal architects of the Bush administration's interrogation policies. Renowned legal scholar David Cole's introductory essay tells the story behind the memos, and presents a compelling case that instead of demanding that the CIA conform its conduct to the law, the nation's top lawyers contorted the law to conform to the CIA's abusive and patently illegal conduct. He argues eloquently that official accountability for these legal wrongs is essential if the United States is to restore fidelity to the rule of law.

Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the Central Intelligence Agency embarked on a highly classified program of secret detention and extraordinary rendition of terrorist suspects. The program was designed to place detainee interrogations beyond the reach of law. Suspected terrorists were seized and secretly flown across national borders to be interrogated by foreign governments that used torture, or by the CIA itself in clandestine 'black sites' using torture techniques. This report is the most comprehensive account yet assembled of the human rights abuses associated with secret detention and extraordinary rendition operations. It details for the first time the number of known victims, and lists the foreign governments that participated in these operations. It shows that responsibility for the abuses lies not only with the United States but with dozens of foreign governments that were complicit. More than 10 years after the 2001 attacks, this report makes it unequivocally clear that the time has come for the United States and its partners to definitively repudiate these illegal practices and secure accountability for the associated human rights abuses.