period. Torture and destruction of evidence controversy Haspel has attracted controversy for her role as chief of a CIA black site in Thailand in 2002 in which prisoners were tortured with so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques", including waterboarding. At that time, the Bush Administration considered the techniques legal based on a set of secret, now-rescinded legal opinions which expansively defined executive authority and narrowly defined torture. Haspel's involvement was confirmed in August 2018 when a Freedom of Information lawsuit by the George Washington University-based National Security Archive brought to light CIA cables either authorized or written by Haspel while base chief at the Thailand black site. The cables describe acts of deliberate physical torture of detainees, including waterboarding and confinement, which Haspel personally observed. In late October 2002, Haspel became a chief of base for a "black site" CIA prison located in Thailand. She worked at a site that was codenamed "Cat's Eye", which would later become known as the place where suspected al Qaeda terrorist members Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri and Abu Zubaydah were detained and tortured with waterboarding. In early February 2017, The New York Times and ProPublica reported that these waterboardings were both conducted under Haspel. In March 2018, US officials said Haspel was not involved in the torture of Zubaydah, as she only became chief of base after Zubaydah was tortured. ProPublica and The New York Times issued corrections to their stories but noted that Haspel was involved in the torture of al-Nashiri. In August 2018, cables from the site, dating from November 2002 and likely authorized by if not written by Haspel, were released due to a Freedom of Information lawsuit, and described the torture of Nashiri in detail, including slamming him against a wall, confining him to a small box, waterboarding him, and depriving him of sleep and clothing, while threatening to turn him over to others who would kill him. Interrogators involved would also call Nashiri "a little girl," "a spoiled little rich Saudi," and a "sissy". Haspel played a role in the destruction of 92 interrogation videotapes that showed the torture of detainees both at the black site she ran and at other secret agency locations. A partially-declassified CIA document shows that the instruction for a new method of record keeping at the black site in Thailand, re-recording over the videos, took place in late October 2002, soon after Haspel's arrival. In December 2014,