For years, Daniel J Jones worked in a windowless room in Virginia, poring over documents detailing acts that can only be described as torture. Over and over again, he read about wall-slams and beatings, people waterboarded until their eyes rolled back and the liquid bubbled from their nose. Some were kept awake for days in bright rooms amid deafening noises, or had power drills placed against temples, or were forcibly rehydrated, rectally, or were nailed into coffin-sized boxes packed with crawling insects and left to scream.

All of this, Jones read, noted, catalogued, weekends and weekdays alike, late into the night. And then, when he’d finally get home at one or two in the morning, he’d crawl into bed next to his sleeping, neglected girlfriend