States Justice Department from November 2001 to March 2003. Torture memos Following the September 11 attacks, the George W. Bush administration classified detainees as unlawful combatants, claiming they were not protected under the Geneva Conventions as prisoners of war. In late 2001 and early 2002, these detainees were subjected to beatings, electric shocks, exposure to extreme cold, suspension from the ceiling by their arms, and drowning in buckets of water. An unknown number died as a result. In April 2002, the CIA had captured its first important prisoner, Abu Zubaydah, who was transferred to a CIA black site and subjected to sleep deprivation using bright lights and loud music, all prior to any legal authorization from the US Justice Department. Later that April, CIA contractor James Mitchell proposed a list of additional tactics, including locking people in cramped boxes, shackling them in painful positions, keeping them awake for a week at a time, covering them with insects, and waterboarding, a practice which the United States had previously characterized in war crimes prosecutions as torture. Jose Rodriguez, head of the CIA's clandestine service, asked his superiors for authorization for what Rodriguez called an "alternative set of interrogation procedures." The CIA sought immunity from prosecution, sometimes known as a "get out of jail free card." To this end, CIA acting General Counsel John A. Rizzo requested a legal opinion, which was routed to the OLC by White House General Counsel Alberto Gonzales, who desired the "ability to quickly obtain information from captured terrorists and their sponsors." The CIA requested an interpretation of the statutory term of "torture" as defined in , which implements, in part, the obligations of the United States under the 1984 United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Together with John Yoo, Bybee drafted the Torture Memos, a set of legal memoranda which gave the CIA legal cover to torture detainees using "enhanced interrogation techniques". These techniques are viewed as torture by the Justice Department, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, medical experts in the treatment of torture victims, intelligence officials, and American allies. According to journalist Seymour Hersh, Bybee wrote in a memo that "for an act to constitute torture it must inflict pain...equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death." For this and other memos, critics have called