London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Oct 02, 2025

The Spy Museum Is Now Planning To Overhaul Its Controversial Torture Exhibit

The Spy Museum Is Now Planning To Overhaul Its Controversial Torture Exhibit

The museum intends to implement changes to the exhibit by March after it faced widespread criticism for playing down the brutality of the CIA’s torture program.
The International Spy Museum is working on sweeping changes to its controversial torture exhibit following backlash from lawmakers, national security and human rights experts, and former intelligence officials.

Last month, three Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee wrote to the museum, accusing it of “sanitizing” the CIA’s torture program and requesting information about proposed changes to the exhibit, BuzzFeed News first reported. In 2014, the committee released an executive summary of a classified report concluding that the Bush-era program failed to produce "unique" or "valuable" intelligence and that the CIA misled lawmakers about the program’s effectiveness.

In a newly obtained letter sent to lawmakers a day after BuzzFeed News’ report, the museum’s president described the planned changes to the exhibit, which include adding the executive summary of the committee’s torture report to the display. “The new exhibit will focus more broadly on the history of interrogation, to include both coercive methods (physical and psychological) and non-coercive methods (such as rapport building),” reads the Dec. 20 letter to Sens. Dianne Feinstein, Martin Heinrich, and Ron Wyden. “We also intend to add content on scientific and technical innovations to detect deceit (to include a polygraph artifact), as well as legal definitions of torture.”

As it stands, the museum’s so-called interrogation exhibit focuses on physical torture methods used in centuries past, as well as the techniques -such as waterboarding -used by the CIA after the 9/11 attacks. It also leaves open the question of whether torture works, despite the committee’s findings.

The museum, which counts a handful of former CIA officials who were staunch defenders of the torture program as advisers, has been harshly criticized since it reopened last spring and unveiled the new exhibit.

Experts railed against the museum for the exhibit’s both-sides approach, depictions of the agency’s brutal torture techniques, and inclusion of a poll asking visitors if they would support torturing suspected terrorists. Torture is banned under the Geneva Conventions, and President Barack Obama signed legislation authored by Feinstein and Sen. John McCain into law that specifically prohibited the techniques used by the CIA after the 9/11 attacks.

Feinstein and Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, wrote to the museum in May asking that it include the committee’s study in the exhibit and the prohibitions against the use of torture in interrogations.

After that, committee staff toured the museum and addressed “mischaracterizations and inaccuracies that were present in the exhibit,” a committee spokesperson previously said. At the time, the museum said it was revising the exhibit, but did not provide details on the planned changes.

The new exhibit will feature “an expanded timeline of the history of the [CIA] program,” according to the Dec. 20 letter from museum president Tamara Christian, in addition to the inclusion of the committee’s report.

“As you know, the Museum is an independent, educational organization, and as such is ultimately responsible for the integrity, accuracy and balance of its own exhibits,” Christian wrote. “We welcome input from all quarters. Input from those responsible for the Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Detention and Interrogation Program has been of particular value.”

Christian said the museum’s board has been updated on the planned changes and that the goal is to implement them by March. Christian also offered to provide the senators with further updates about the progress. A spokesperson for the museum declined to comment.

In a statement, Heinrich, Feinstein, and Wyden said they were “pleased that the museum has confirmed it is moving forward with changes to its interrogation exhibit.” They also said they welcomed an invitation from the museum to meet its “leadership, historians, and curators to ensure that the changes being implemented reflect the truth about the brutality and ineffectiveness of torture.”

One of the Intelligence Committee staffers who has been involved in the effort to change the exhibit is Evan Gottesman, who served on the committee during the torture program study and worked on the 6,700-page classified report. The museum provided Gottesman an update on the proposed changes in the fall, according to the Dec. 20 letter.

But Daniel J. Jones, the chief investigator on the committee’s study, said he remains doubtful of the museum. “The museum’s promotion of the CIA’s torture program, blind allegiance to the CIA’s talking points, and willful avoidance of the documented facts is appalling,” Jones, who has not visited the museum but has seen videos of photos of the exhibit, told BuzzFeed News on Wednesday. “Even more so when you consider the museum’s main audience -our nation’s schoolchildren.”

“Based on what I’ve seen so far -how far they’re off the mark -I’m more than a little skeptical that they can make the necessary corrections to this exhibit. But we will see in March if they’re serious,” he said.

Jones, who is portrayed by Adam Driver in The Report -the critically acclaimed movie about his work -noted that the “CIA’s own secret internal review echoed the Senate’s findings.” The CIA has blocked attempts to release the top-secret document, known as the Panetta Review and named after then–CIA director Leon Panetta, saying it was incomplete and never meant to be seen by the Senate.

“The same individuals that should have faced legal and professional accountability continue to spread the same misinformation and defend the use of torture,” Jones said. “The Spy Museum has been so careless with the facts here that it should cast doubt on the integrity of their entire enterprise. Absent a major reversal, our nation’s school leaders should think twice before adding the Spy Museum to their students’ class trip agendas.”
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
FBI Removes Agents Who Kneeled at 2020 Protest, Citing Breach of Professional Conduct
Trump Alleges ‘Triple Sabotage’ at United Nations After Escalator and Teleprompter Failures
Shock in France: 5 Years in Prison for Former President Nicolas Sarkozy
Tokyo’s Jimbōchō Named World’s Coolest Neighbourhood for 2025
European Officials Fear Trump May Shift Blame for Ukraine War onto EU
BNP Paribas Abandons Ban on 'Controversial Weapons' Financing Amid Europe’s Defence Push
Typhoon Ragasa Leaves Trail of Destruction Across East Asia Before Making Landfall in China
The Personality Rights Challenge in India’s AI Era
Big Banks Rebuild in Hong Kong as Deal Volume Surges
Italy Considers Freezing Retirement Age at 67 to Avert Scheduled Hike
Italian City to Impose Tax on Visiting Dogs Starting in 2026
Arnault Denounces Proposed Wealth Tax as Threat to French Economy
Study Finds No Safe Level of Alcohol for Dementia Risk
Denmark Investigates Drone Incursion, Does Not Rule Out Russian Involvement
Lilly CEO Warns UK Is ‘Worst Country in Europe’ for Drug Prices, Pulls Back Investment
Nigel Farage Emerges as Central Force in British Politics with Reform UK Surge
Disney Reinstates ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ after Six-Day Suspension over Charlie Kirk Comments
U.S. Prosecutors Move to Break Up Google’s Advertising Monopoly
Nvidia Pledges Up to $100 Billion Investment in OpenAI to Power Massive AI Data Center Build-Out
U.S. Signals ‘Large and Forceful’ Support for Argentina Amid Market Turmoil
Nvidia and Abu Dhabi’s TII Launch First AI-&-Robotics Lab in the Middle East
Vietnam Faces Up to $25 Billion Export Loss as U.S. Tariffs Bite
Europe Signals Stronger Support for Taiwan at Major Taipei Defence Show
Indonesia Court Upholds Military Law Amid Concerns Over Expanded Civilian Role
Larry Ellison, Michael Dell and Rupert Murdoch Join Trump-Backed Bid to Take Over TikTok
Trump and Musk Reunite Publicly for First Time Since Fallout at Kirk Memorial
Vietnam Closes 86 Million Untouched Bank Accounts Over Biometric ID Rules
×