Secret CIA prisons revealed

It's illegal for the government to hold anyone incommunicado in secret prisons in the United States. So the CIA holds suspected terrorists (and whomever else it chooses) in “black sites” scattered around the world, according to the Washington Post. Some are run by the CIA. Others are run by host nations with records of chronic prisoner abuse.

This shadow prison system was authorized by a single document signed by the president days after September 11, 2001, granting the CIA sweeping authority to “disrupt terrorist activity”. It is so classified that most members of Congress, which is nominally responsible for oversight in such cases, know nothing about it.