I thought things might be changing earlier this year, but I was wrong. In January, Barack Obama’s administration announced what seemed to be a major change in policy: Henceforth, former prisoners of the Central Intelligence Agency would be allowed to describe their life in custody. Though they could not identify CIA personnel or disclose where they were tortured, the new rule allowed them to provide “information regarding [their] treatment” and “conditions of confinement.” That was a big deal, and those of us who represent the men tortured by the CIA welcomed the news. Attorneys for Majid Khan, a former CIA prisoner, promptly sought permission to disclose his description of his torture. Among other abuses, he was subjected to what the CIA euphemistically calls rectal infusions but what prosecutors all over the country call anal rape. After some back and forth, the government allowed Khan’s lawyers to release his account to the public. Reuters published the account, and for the next 24 hours, the article was one of the most popular stories on Reuters’ 17 websites worldwide, which gives some indication of the public interest in this information. And that was apparently the end of the administration’s very brief dalliance with transparency. My colleagues and I represent Zain Abidin Mohammed Husain Abu Zubaydah, who was the first person subjected to so-called enhanced interrogation techniques. In fact, he is the person for whom the techniques were devised. Like Khan’s lawyers, we sought permission to disclose Abu Zubaydah’s description of his torture. Abu Zubaydah’s treatment was considerably more brutal than Khan’s and went on for a substantially longer period. The public already knows he was waterboarded 83 times in August 2002 alone. In fact, according to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Abu Zubaydah’s torture was so appalling that when it began, seasoned CIA agents asked to be transferred rather than be forced to watch it take place. It was sufficiently grotesque that the CIA sought assurances that his treatment would never come to light and that he would be held incommunicado for the rest of his life.

You want to get beyond the sterile bureaucratic blather that deliberately conjures no image — empty expressions such as ‘stress position’ and ‘enhanced interrogation’?

And that is precisely why it should be known. Four people represent Abu Zubaydah: Mark Denbeaux, a law professor at Seton Hall; Amy Jacobsen, an American lawyer now living in Copenhagen, Denmark; Brent Mickum, an attorney in Washington, D.C.; and me. We are among the few people in the world who know what happened to him at the CIA black sites. And the facts of his treatment would make people sick. Literally physically sick. In response to the new rule, we submitted 136 pages of notes and drawings in 17 submissions — some written by us, most by our client. In these pages, Abu Zubaydah described in great detail the treatment and conditions he endured. We followed the government’s requirements to the letter, carefully removing all prohibited information. The government authorized us to release a grand total of four pages. Here they are: