Six days after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, President George W. Bush issued a directive allowing the CIA to secretly detain and interrogate prisoners at clandestine sites located around the world, cut off from communication with legal counsel, family, and everyone else. The locations of eight of these sites, along with descriptions of some of the deeply disturbing practices there, were included in today’s release of the so-called “torture report” — the heavily redacted executive summary of a senate committee study of the CIA’s Bush-era interrogation program.
The report identifies the locations of the CIA black sites by color codes and redacts the country names, but previous reports by NGOs, European agencies, media reports and detainee statements can identify most of the locations. The sites are located in Afghanistan, Lithuania, Romania, Poland, Thailand, and a secret site on the Guantanamo Naval Base, known as Strawberry Fields, – “forever.”
Margot Williams, The Intercept‘s research editor for investigations, compiled the locations and, with research editor Josh Begley, placed them on the map below:
Photo: Google Maps
IT’S EVEN WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT.
What we’re seeing right now from Donald Trump is a full-on authoritarian takeover of the U.S. government.
This is not hyperbole.
Court orders are being ignored. MAGA loyalists have been put in charge of the military and federal law enforcement agencies. The Department of Government Efficiency has stripped Congress of its power of the purse. News outlets that challenge Trump have been banished or put under investigation.
Yet far too many are still covering Trump’s assault on democracy like politics as usual, with flattering headlines describing Trump as “unconventional,” “testing the boundaries,” and “aggressively flexing power.”
The Intercept has long covered authoritarian governments, billionaire oligarchs, and backsliding democracies around the world. We understand the challenge we face in Trump and the vital importance of press freedom in defending democracy.
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IT’S BEEN A DEVASTATING year for journalism — the worst in modern U.S. history.
We have a president with utter contempt for truth aggressively using the government’s full powers to dismantle the free press. Corporate news outlets have cowered, becoming accessories in Trump’s project to create a post-truth America. Right-wing billionaires have pounced, buying up media organizations and rebuilding the information environment to their liking.
In this most perilous moment for democracy, The Intercept is fighting back. But to do so effectively, we need to grow.
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I’M BEN MUESSIG, The Intercept’s editor-in-chief. It’s been a devastating year for journalism — the worst in modern U.S. history.
We have a president with utter contempt for truth aggressively using the government’s full powers to dismantle the free press. Corporate news outlets have cowered, becoming accessories in Trump’s project to create a post-truth America. Right-wing billionaires have pounced, buying up media organizations and rebuilding the information environment to their liking.
In this most perilous moment for democracy, The Intercept is fighting back. But to do so effectively, we need to grow.
That’s where you come in. Will you help us expand our reporting capacity in time to hit the ground running in 2026?
We’re independent of corporate interests. Will you help us?
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