Yves here. Readers may know that some of the history of US black sites, as in torture sites, overseas has become public.<\/a> I understand from a former Thai government staffer here that the US ran a second site here, in the basement of the US embassy.<\/p>\n By Thomas Neuburger. Originally published at God\u2019s Spies<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n This is a follow-up to our recent Minnesota Black Site post<\/a>:<\/p>\n Is it really fair to call the ICE prison at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building a \u201cblack site\u201d? Let\u2019s take a look.<\/p>\n What Is a \u2018Black Site\u2019?<\/b><\/p>\n \u201cBlack site\u201d is a scary term. It\u2019s been frequently used for places where the CIA maintains off-the-radar prisons, where abducted terrorists are taken, held and usually tortured.<\/p>\n Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan was (and may still be) such a site. From the Atlantic<\/a> in 2010:<\/p>\n The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) runs a classified interrogation facility for high-value detainees inside Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan, defense and administration officials said, and prisoners there are sometimes subject to tougher interrogation methods than those used elsewhere.<\/p>\n Both the New York Times<\/a> and the BBC<\/a> reported that prisoners who passed through the facility reported abuse, like beatings and sexual humiliation, to the Red Cross, which is not allowed access. The commander in charge of detention operations in Afghanistan, Vice Admiral Robert Harward, has insisted <\/a>that all detainees under his purview have regular Red Cross access and are not mistreated.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n There\u2019s more at Wikipedia<\/a>, which reports the 2014 claim by \u201cdefense officials<\/a>\u201d that the facility has been shut down. (True? Who knows? We pay our warriors to lie to keep us safe.)<\/p>\n The definition of \u201cblack site<\/a>\u201d goes something like this:<\/p>\n Black sites are clandestine state-operated detention centers where prisoners who have not been charged with a crime are incarcerated without due process or court order, are often mistreated and murdered, and have no recourse to bail.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n What\u2019s interesting about black sites is that they\u2019re not really that secret \u2014 they\u2019re just unacknowledged and inaccessible to inspection. The Bagram black site was known as a torture site to the New York Times as early as 2005<\/a>:<\/p>\n In 2005, The New York Times obtained a 2,000-page United States Army investigatory report concerning the homicides of two unarmed civilian Afghan prisoners by U.S. military personnel in December 2002 at the Bagram Theater Internment Facility (also Bagram Collection Point or B.C.P., now the Parwan Detention Facility) in Bagram, Afghanistan, and general treatment of prisoners. Two prisoners, Habibullah and Dilawar, were repeatedly chained to the ceiling and beaten, resulting in their deaths. Military coroners ruled that both prisoners\u2019 deaths were homicides. Autopsies revealed severe trauma to both prisoners\u2019 legs, describing the trauma as comparable to being run over by a bus. Seven soldiers were charged in 2005.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n By the way, there\u2019s still a detention center, the \u201cParwan Detention Facility,\u201d next to the base. Black site? Who knows?<\/p>\n The Bishop Whipple Detention Center<\/b><\/p>\n So the questions are these. Is the prison at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building\u2026<\/p>\n \u2026though the last is not strictly necessary for a black site to exist.<\/p>\n To answer, it seems the immigrant cells are acknowledged, but this is the first report I\u2019ve seen that separate known-citizens cells<\/strong> exist, where illegally detained or abducted citizens could be held indefinitely and without charges.<\/p>\n Second, it\u2019s certainly true that the Bishop Whipple prison is not subject to inspection<\/a>.<\/p>\n Finally, as to being a place of torture, consider this, from the Houston Chronicle report of the incident<\/a> (all emphasis mine):<\/p>\n On their way to the cells, [O\u2019Keefe and Sig\u00fcenza] saw other detainees who were screaming and wailing for help, though most were dejectedly staring at the ground, they said. In one instance, they observed a woman who was trying to use a toilet while three male agents watched<\/strong>. The overwhelming majority of detainees were Hispanic men, though some were East African \u2014 Minnesota is home to the country\u2019s largest Somali community.<\/p>\n \u201cJust hearing the visceral pain of the people in this center was awful,\u201d O\u2019Keefe said. \u201cAnd then you juxtapose that with the laughter we heard from the actual agents. \u2026 It was very surreal and kind of shocking.\u201d<\/p>\n Sig\u00fcenza said one of his cellmates had a cut on his head and the other had an injured toe, but neither was offered medical help. Their requests for water or to go to the bathroom outside their cells were also ignored, he said.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Note the toilet incident. Humiliation, including sexual humiliation<\/a>, is a form of torture. It makes people ashamed and compliant, and it\u2019s done deliberately.<\/p>\n There are also reports like this<\/a>:<\/p>\n Agents say man injured in ICE custody \u2018purposely ran headfirst into a brick wall\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n A Minnesota man incurred severe head wounds while in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody<\/a> earlier this month, with the agency posting guards at his hospital bedside despite his deteriorating condition, according to his attorneys.<\/p>\n The man, who was born in Mexico, was detained by federal immigration agents Jan. 8 on St. Paul\u2019s east side, according to a habeas corpus petition in federal court asking for his release.<\/p>\n The man was brought to the hospital by agents four hours after his arrest. A CT scan found that the man had \u201clife-threatening bilateral skull fractures and hemorrhaging.\u201d \u2026<\/p>\n One agent told hospital staff, according to the petition, that \u201che got his shit rocked,\u201d but did not share other information.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n And consider this story<\/a> of a man whose door was broken down to affect his arrest. He was taken to the Bishop Whipple Federal Building where this occurred:<\/p>\n ICE agents take \u2018trophy pictures,\u2019 pack detainees into holding cells<\/strong><\/p>\n Gibson said that after they arrived at the Whipple Federal Building near MSP airport, where ICE has a detention facility, the agents paused and forced him to take part in an act of ritual humiliation.<\/p>\n \u201cThey took trophy pictures with their personal phones<\/strong>. Like one stood by me on the right side of me. One stood on the left side of me. And they went, like, thumbs up and took pictures with their personal phones,\u201d he said, adding that agents took similar photos with other detainees<\/strong>. \u2026<\/p>\n Inside the detention center, Gibson said that officers put him in a bare, metal holding cell about the size of a small conference room with around 40 other detainees. Their legs were shackled. He said that the cell was cold and they shared a single toilet that offered no privacy. Gibson says that one person in the cell appeared to have scabies.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Note also the open defiance of court orders in the same story:<\/p>\n U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Bryan on Monday ordered ICE not to remove Gibson from Minnesota, away from his family and lawyer.<\/p>\n But later Monday, officers put Gibson on a plane along with other shackled detainees and flew them to a detention center in El Paso, Texas.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n This is not your usual arrest-and-detention facility \u2014 not Whipple nor any place like it<\/a>. And the State has three years left to build even more.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nakedcapitalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/00-black-sites.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Is](\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!BVno!,w_140,h_140,c_fill,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep,g_auto\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ffeb71705-2c05-4448-a59d-01ef9d5ebd65_992x558.jpeg\")
<\/picture><\/div>\nIs ICE Running a Black Site in Minnesota?<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
![\"Print](\"https:\/\/cdn.printfriendly.com\/buttons\/print-button-gray.png\")
<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n