THE ACLU SUED the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) on Thursday for documents related to its inspection of a CIA black site in 2002. According to the executive summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s torture report, which was declassified in 2014, officers from the BOP conducted a detailed assessment of the infamous detention center known as “COBALT,” or the “salt pit,” near Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan.
After the ACLU filed a request for those documents in 2014, the bureau twice denied having any. Under the Freedom of Information Act, the government cannot deny the existence of documents it holds outright; instead, the government must notify the requester that it is withholding documents, and reference specific “exemptions,” like national security.
The ACLU lawsuit alleges that either the bureau conducted an inadequate search, or is illegally denying the existence of documents.
According to the summary of the torture report, the CIA consulted the Bureau of Prisons in 2002 because of its “lack of experience running detention facilities” and its need for people with “specialized expertise to assist the CIA in operating the facilities.”
According to the report, several BOP officers toured COBALT in November 2002 and conducted a detailed assessment. CIA interrogators quoted in the Senate report described the facility as “a dungeon,” where detainees “cowered” as interrogators opened the door and “looked like a dog that had been kenneled.”
Some of the CIA’s worst abuses happened at COBALT, including rectal exams that were conducted with “excessive force.”
Even as the BOP officers toured the facility, one CIA detainee was tortured to death. After being dragged outside his cell, stripped naked, beaten, and immersed in cold water, Gul Rahman was put in an isolation cell overnight, where he died of hypothermia.
According to a CIA officer who was quoted but not named in the Senate report, BOP personnel were “WOW’ed” by the prison, having “never been in a facility where individuals are so sensory deprived” with “everyone in the dark.”
Despite observing that “there is nothing like this in the Federal Bureau of Prisons,” the inspectors concluded that the “salt pit” was “sanitary” and “not inhumane,” and that the CIA “did not mistreat the detainees.”
ACLU lawyers argue that their lawsuit is essential to determine not only the role the BOP played in the CIA’s torture program, but also to reveal how the BOP understands prisoner abuse.
“The Federal Bureau of Prisons not only runs the federal prison system, but also provides technical assistance to prison officials around the country,” said Carl Takei, a staff attorney with the ACLU’s National Prison Project, in a statement emailed to The Intercept. “If the Bureau of Prisons is willing to certify that a dungeon like COBALT is ‘not inhumane,’ then why should anyone trust the bureau’s assurances that its own prisons are humane?”
Top photo: A soldier outside the Bagram prison in 2014.
It seems certain that BOP officials will be indicted for war crimes at some point considering the context. Plaintiffs are totally independent of the U.S. Department of Justice (which refuses to appoint a Special Prosecutor).
We now know most of those tortured were never near any battlefield or related to any conflict but SOLD to allied troops – in other words these agencies never had any legal jurisdiction in the first place.
Only federal courts had legal jurisdiction and most would never be charged since there was never any real evidence.
These Plaintiffs can pursue these U.S. officials and contractors for decades even into retirement or go after their children’s inheritance.
Well, if it was up to me, I’d give these inspectors life imprisonment.
Thank you Alex, for this article. Nothing should ever let us forget what Howdy Doody and Obusha did to horrify the world, and bring great shame to our nation, not to mention inflict incredible pain on innocent people in our name.
I will never forgive them for it.
Ever wonder what was going through the minds of the people of nazi germany? Happy go lucky my oh my what a wonderful day?
The mainstream media is feeding americans entertainment while on the other side of the tracks committing crimes against humanity and when confronted or challenged, coming up with all kinds of denials and threats.
Maybe we are living in a state of evil and don’t know it?
Ever gone to the library to do research and the crucial paper you need to find isn’t anywhere … eventually you find out the journal is “at the bindery”, won’t be back for three weeks?
I wonder if these guys re-bind all their books once a year, right around the time they run the FOIA requests…
i get the impression that there really is plausible deniability in the clever workarounds the gov comes up with and that your wild guesses are closer to reality than not.
Oh my god…. The fact that the BOP said the Salt Pit is “not inhumane” is nothing short of TERRIFYING.
I think this article is right to conclude the way it did: it seems that the BOP should NOT be trusted with overseeing the conditions of American prisons (not for U.S. citizens, not for other citizens, not for prisoners of war OR for terrorists!)
The BOP seems to be more of a front to protect torturers than to protect prisoners. So since that’s the case, where DOES someone go who needs help ending torture in a prison?????
>>where DOES someone go who needs help ending torture in a prison
Superheroes?
Or a candidate for POTUS committed to imposing profound and needed reform.
Easier than you might think.
The new law says that persons who participate in torture shall have all their possessions removed and shall be left pennyless unless their immediate family signs a notice of rejection (conditions apply).
You see, the people can write laws. The people do not have to have these laws proposed by their elected do-nothing-go-nowheres. People can write the law. These people laws can be voted on by people. When the momentum is achieved, the do-nothing-go-nowheres will be invalidated despised and ridiculed. It will be like defaning rattlesnakes.
At first when I read your post I thought it said that the prisoners would be removed of all of their possessions. Thank goodness we live in a world where if that were true it would be the most repeated story in the international media, and that there would be global outcry regarding the horrific reality of that situation.