Arrow Right Caret Close Skip to content

Investigative Journalism in the Public Interest

Donate
ProPublica
ProPublica
Donate

Investigative Journalism
in the Public Interest

Reporting on Citizens DetainedSports BettingRaw Milk
AboutNewslettersPodcastHave a Tip?
ProPublica

Investigative Journalism in the Public Interest

Donate

ProPublica is a nonprofit, investigative newsroom that exposes corruption. We report in all 50 states and partner with local newsrooms. Our work spurs real-world impact and has received numerous awards, including nine Pulitzer Prizes.

About UsImpactLeadershipStaffPartners
Contact UsPressSend Us Tips

Topics We Cover

See All
  • Abortion
  • Civil Rights
  • Courts
  • Criminal Justice
  • Debt
  • Democracy
  • Education
  • Climate and Environment
  • Health Care
  • Health Insurance
  • Immigration
  • Labor
  • Mental Health
  • Military
  • Police
  • Politics
  • Pregnancy
  • Prison
  • Racial Justice
  • Regulation
  • Sex and Gender
  • Sports
  • Technology

Our Biggest Series

See All

Life of the Mother

How Abortion Bans Lead to Preventable Deaths

The New Immigration

How Recent Arrivals at the Border Have Changed the Country and Its Attitudes

Friends of the Court

SCOTUS Justices’ Beneficial Relationships With Billionaire Donors

The Missing Memos

by Christopher Weaver and Dan Nguyen
January 27, 2009, 11:56 pm




by Dan Nguyen and Christopher Weaver
ProPublica Updated April 16, 2009 6:00 p.m.

The Bush administration’s controversial policies on detentions, interrogations and warrantless wiretapping were underpinned by legal memoranda. While some of those memos have been released (primarily as a result of ACLU lawsuits), the former administration kept far more memos secret than has been previously understood. At least three dozen by our count.

The decision to release them now lies with President Obama. To help inform the debate—and inject an extra dose of accountability—we’re posting the first comprehensive list of the secret memos. (The ACLU first compiled a list, which ProPublica verified and expanded on.) 

Note: Our list is quite inclusive, but we have chosen to leave off some documents, such as early drafts of later memos.  

Click on the headline of each entry to see more information. Or mouse over the timeline and click on a box to jump to the corresponding entry. We’ll update the list if and when more memos are released.

Read about the authors behind the memos.

Check out our latest coverage on the memos.

 

Corrections

Contributors

  • Christopher Weaver

    Christopher Weaver was an intern at ProPublica.

  • Dan Nguyen

    • X

    Dan Nguyen was a news application developer at ProPublica.

Republish This Story for Free

Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)


Thank you for your interest in republishing this story. You are free to republish it so long as you do the following:

  • You have to credit ProPublica and any co-reporting partners. In the byline, we prefer "Author Name, Publication(s)." At the top of the text of your story, include a line that reads: "This story was originally published by ProPublica." You must link the word "ProPublica" to the original URL of the story.
  • If you're republishing online, you must link to the URL of this story on propublica.org, include all of the links from our story, including our newsletter sign up language and link, and use our PixelPing tag.
  • If you use canonical metadata, please use the ProPublica URL. For more information about canonical metadata, refer to this Google SEO link.
  • You can't edit our material, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style. (For example, "yesterday" can be changed to "last week," and "Portland, Ore." to "Portland" or "here.")
  • You cannot republish our photographs or illustrations without specific permission. Please contact [email protected].
  • It's okay to put our stories on pages with ads, but not ads specifically sold against our stories. You can't state or imply that donations to your organization support ProPublica's work.
  • You can't sell our material separately or syndicate it. This includes publishing or syndicating our work on platforms or apps such as Apple News, Google News, etc.
  • You can't republish our material wholesale, or automatically; you need to select stories to be republished individually. (To inquire about syndication or licensing opportunities, contact [email protected].)
  • You can't use our work to populate a website designed to improve rankings on search engines or solely to gain revenue from network-based advertisements.
  • We do not generally permit translation of our stories into another language.
  • Any website our stories appear on must include a prominent and effective way to contact you.

Most Read

  • A Texas Cop Signed on to Help ICE Deport His Neighbors. It Tore the Town Apart.

  • “Biblical Justice, Equal Justice, for All”: How North Carolina’s Chief Justice Transformed His State and America

  • How a Secret Vote by U.N. Scientists Legitimized Carbon Capture and Skewed Decades of Climate Policy

  • How Cleta Mitchell Turned Trump’s “Big Lie” Into a Movement

  • Top U.S. Health Official Backed a Medication Policy Shift That Benefited a Company She Has Stock In

  • The Militia and the Mole

  • She Was in Labor at a Florida Hospital. Then She Was in Zoom Court for Refusing a C-Section.

  • Un policía de Texas se apuntó para ayudar al ICE a deportar a sus vecinos. Eso partió al pueblo en dos.

  • Trump Has Tried to Exert More Control Over Elections. Here Are the Key Findings From Our Reporting.

Support Independent Journalism:

As a nonprofit newsroom, we rely on donations from individuals like you to fuel our work. Your support today will directly fund investigations that shine a light on urgent issues: corporations prioritizing profits over public safety, health insurers denying coverage to patients, unintended consequences of new laws and more.

Donate More Ways to Give

Go behind the scenes of ProPublica’s biggest investigations.

Info

  • About
  • Impact
  • Leadership
  • Staff
  • Partners
  • Awards
  • Events
  • Jobs
  • Fellowships

Coverage

  • Abortion
  • Civil Rights
  • Courts
  • Criminal Justice
  • Debt
  • See All

Local

  • Midwest
  • Northwest
  • South
  • Southwest
  • Texas
  • Local Reporting Network

Contact

  • General Inquiries
  • Send Us a Tip
  • Corrections
  • Freelance Pitches
  • Media Inquiries

Support us

  • Donate
  • More Ways To Give
ProPublica

Investigative Journalism in the Public Interest

  • Code of Ethics
  • Republishing
  • Privacy Policy
  • Advertising Policy
  • Gift Acceptance

Journalism That Holds Power to Account

Sign up for ProPublica's Big Story newsletter and get our latest stories delivered straight to your inbox.