5: Prisoners all over the US are on strike for ‘an end to prison slavery’
Prisoners in more than 20 states went on a coordinated strike Friday, refusing to go to their assigned jobs and demanding an “end to prison slavery.” The work stoppage, staged on the 45th anniversary of the Attica prison uprising of 1971, marks one of the largest attempted prison strikes in decades.
“Slavery is alive and well in the prison system, but by the end of this year, it won’t be anymore,” reads a statement by the Industrial Workers of the World’s Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (IWOC), the group that put together and announced the strike. “This call goes directly to the slaves themselves.”
It may be no surprised that America’s 2 million-plus inmates mop floors or scrub toilets in their prisons and jails, but the country’s prison population is also a source of cheap and, in states like Texas, even free labor.
Vice News
4: Syria’s seven-day ceasefire takes effect but violence erupts within hours
A planned ceasefire between regime and opposition groups was struggling to take hold in several parts of Syria hours after it was due to take effect, with explosions reported on a supply line to rebel-held east Aleppo and in the southern town of Deraa.
Attacks were also reported in Homs, Hama and Deir Azzour after sunset on Monday, when the truce brokered by Russia and the US was due to begin. Hopes for the deal had been low over the weekend, with opposition groups insisting that none of its proponents could force each other to comply on contested issues, such as which areas remain valid bombing targets, or who should receive aid.
The Guardian
3:Beijing and Moscow launch South China Sea naval drills
China and Russia have launched eight days of naval drills in the South China Sea in a sign of growing cooperation between the countries’ armed forces against the backdrop of regional territorial disputes.
The exercises come at a time of heightened tension in the contested waters after a UN-backed tribunal ruled in July that China did not have historic rights to the South China Sea and criticised its environmental destruction there. China rejected the ruling and refused to participate in the case.
The “Joint Sea-2016” war games will include exercises on “seizing and controlling” islands and shoals, according to Chinese navy spokesman Liang Yang.
Aljazeera
2: LONG-SECRET STINGRAY MANUALS DETAIL HOW POLICE CAN SPY ON PHONES
HARRIS CORP.’S STINGRAY surveillance device has been one of the most closely guarded secrets in law enforcement for more than 15 years. The company and its police clients across the United States have fought to keep information about the mobile phone-monitoring boxes from the public against which they are used. The Intercept has obtained several Harris instruction manuals spanning roughly 200 pages and meticulously detailing how to create a cellular surveillance dragnet.
Harris has fought to keep its surveillance equipment, which carries price tags in the low six figures, hidden from both privacy activists and the general public, arguing that information about the gear could help criminals. Accordingly, an older Stingray manual released under the Freedom of Information Act to news website TheBlot.com last year was almost completely redacted. So too have law enforcement agencies at every level, across the country, evaded almost all attempts to learn how and why these extremely powerful tools are being used — though court battles have made it clear Stingrays are often deployed without any warrant. The San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department alone has snooped via Stingray, sans warrant, over 300 times.
Richard Tynan, a technologist with Privacy International, told The Intercept that the “manuals released today offer the most up-to-date view on the operation of” Stingrays and similar cellular surveillance devices, with powerful capabilities that threaten civil liberties, communications infrastructure, and potentially national security. He noted that the documents show the “Stingray II” device can impersonate four cellular communications towers at once, monitoring up to four cellular provider networks simultaneously, and with an add-on can operate on so-called 2G, 3G, and 4G networks simultaneously.
The Intercept
1: North Dakota v. Amy Goodman: Arrest Warrant Issued After Pipeline Coverage
In other Dakota Access pipeline news, last Thursday, Morton County, North Dakota, issued an arrest warrant for Amy Goodman. The charge: criminal trespass, a misdemeanor offense. The case, State of North Dakota v. Amy Goodman, stems from Democracy Now!’s coverage in North Dakota over the Labor Day weekend of the Native American-led protests against the Dakota Access pipeline. On Saturday, September 3, Democracy Now! filmed security guards working for the Dakota Access pipeline company using dogs and pepper spray to attack protesters.
Democracy Now!
