When President Trump nominated Gina Haspel to be CIA director in March 2018, the CIA began an unprecedented propaganda campaign to promote her confirmation by the Senate. The CIA’s campaign selectively disseminated information perceived as favorable to Haspel while hiding her deep involvement in torture and abuse during the Bush administration. The CIA strategically whitewashed Haspel’s past, including her supervision of a secret prison in Thailand where she oversaw the torture of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri.

In November 2002, the CIA tortured Afghan citizen Gul Rahman to death. The CIA covered up his death for years and continues to hide information about the whereabouts of his body from his grieving family.

A U.S. military raid in Yemen on January 29, 2017, left one Navy SEAL and many Yemeni civilians dead. The ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act request in March with the Central Intelligence Agency and the Departments of Defense, Justice, and State. In May 2017, we filed a lawsuit asking a federal court to enforce the request, which asks for records including the legal basis and decision-making process used for the raid, as well as assessments of civilian deaths afterwards.

In a Freedom of Information Act request filed on January 13, 2010, the ACLU asked the government to disclose the legal and factual basis for its use of predator drones to conduct "targeted killings" overseas. In particular, the ACLU sought to find out when, where, and against whom drone strikes can be authorized, and how the United States ensures compliance with international laws relating to extrajudicial killings.