During the Cold War , the American Central Intelligence Agency was a significant influence among world powers regarding torture techniques in its support of anti-Communist regimes . The CIA adopted methods such as waterboarding , sleep deprivation , and the use of electric shock , which were used by the Gestapo , KGB , and North Koreans from their involvement in the Korean War . The CIA also researched ' no-touch ' torture , involving sensory deprivation , self-inflicted pain , and psychological stress . The CIA taught its refined techniques of torture through police and military training to American-supported regimes in the Middle East , in Southeast Asia during the bloody Phoenix Program , and throughout Latin America during Operation Condor . In some Asian and South Pacific nations , such as Malaysia and the Philippines , torture for interrogating and terrorizing opponents became widespread . " In its pursuit of torturers across the globe for the past forty years , " writer Alfred McCoy notes , " Amnesty International has been , in a certain sense , following the trail of CIA programs . " After the revelation of CIA sponsored torture in the 1970s and the subsequent outcry , the CIA largely stopped its own interrogations under torture . Throughout the 1980s and 1990s , it " outsourced " such interrogation through renditions of prisoners to third world allies , often called torture-by-proxy . But in the furor over the September 11 attacks , American authorities cast aside scruples , legally authorizing some forms of interrogation by torture under euphemisms such as " enhanced interrogation techniques " or " interrogation in depth " to collect intelligence on Al Qaeda , starting in 2002 . Ultimately the CIA , the US military , and their contract employees tortured untold thousands at Abu Ghraib , Bagram , and secret black site prisons scattered around the globe , according to the Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture and the bipartisan U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee report Whether these interrogations under torture produced useful information is hotly disputed
September 11 attacks
September 11 attacks
Interrogation