Editor's note: On Friday, June 8, the Council of Europe, a human rights agency, released a detailed investigation of the CIA's secret "black site" prisons that hold al-Qaida types. Press reports on that investigation have focused on how the Bush administration allegedly hijacked the NATO alliance to help establish the interrogation sites. But the report also includes frightening details on the treatment of CIA detainees, including "extreme sensory deprivation" techniques tantamount to psychological torture. On June 7, Salon reported that sensory deprivation techniques had been used on these so-called "high-value" detainees. Experts, including a former high-level CIA official, predicted the agency would try to continue to use those methods in the future. Among the methods discussed in the Council of Europe report: Captives were isolated from human contact for 120 days in barren rooms with constant, dull light and white noise. Blindfolding was common. Air was pumped in from a ventilation hole in the ceiling. The techniques are remarkably similar to those contained in a highly controversial 1963 CIA manual on preparing prisoners for coercive interrogations.