Thread by @DelapierceD

Seeing @xyChelsea interview at in San Francisco!
#ChelseaManning

"We were using marketing technology for the military, marketing death essentially."
@xyChelsea #ChelseaManning

"I was homeless, going to community college, and working from job to job. I thought by joining the military, I could maybe be a part of something while finding structure and stability."
@xyChelsea #ChelseaManning

"I did not want to deal with my gender. I got into my work. I thought, I'm going to math the crap out of this stuff."
@xyChelsea #ChelseaManning

"In Iraq, I realized this was their home. We were the intruders, the occupiers. All the datasets, they were records of people, and everything they had lost."
@xyChelsea #ChelseaManning

"The media basically glossed over it. Iraq was bad, but it is over now. We overlooked what was ethnic cleansing."
@xyChelsea #ChelseaManning

"We already know. That's the thing. We're aware of the problem. We look away. We make decisions everyday about whether we're going to ignore something."
@xyChelsea #ChelseaManning

"I became a public figure while I was cut off completely from the outside world. I just got out 10 months ago, but I have been a public figure for 7 years, with no say in that."
@xyChelsea #ChelseaManning

"Everybody is asking me questions about 7, 8 years ago, and I'm trying to tell them the biggest crisis of our lives is right in front of us."
@xyChelsea #ChelseaManning

"I know what it's like to be in an occupied country. We have a military presence in our police force."
@xyChelsea #ChelseaManning

"It's the people who stand by me who give me hope. Not some algorithm or policy. We just need each other."
@xyChelsea #ChelseaManning

"It's not the other inmates who give each other problems, it's the prison guards. We had to look out for each other, even when it was against the rules."
@xyChelsea #ChelseaManning

"Appeals to authority didn't do it. We had to rely on each other."
@xyChelsea #ChelseaManning

"I kept going when I thought I was never going to get out of prison. Now I'm out for 10 months, and I don't see a light at the end of the tunnel, but it's not going to stop me from going."
@xyChelsea #ChelseaManning

"People in power, whenever you challenge them, they have names for you."
@xyChelsea #ChelseaManning

"Criminal, traitor, undocumented. When you're given these labels, you know you are challenging power."
@xyChelsea #ChelseaManning

"Iraq is there because it was divvied up by power. And people fight over this. They stay in power because purple divvy up the world."
@xyChelsea #ChelseaManning

"There are expectations placed on me, and I'm never going to be able to meet them. *I* need a role model."
@xyChelsea #ChelseaManning

"I was always looking up to my sister. She just was there. She was a real hero to me. I wanted to be like her."
@xyChelsea #ChelseaManning

Q: "Do you think encryption and technology can help the democratic process?"
A: "Well first off, what is the democratic process?"
@xyChelsea #ChelseaManning

"Just because something is encrypted, doesn't necessarily mean it is secure. It depends on how these tools are used, because they are only tools."
@xyChelsea #ChelseaManning

"Encryption is just beginning to improve parts of our lives, while making other parts of our lives miserable."
@xyChelsea #ChelseaManning

Q: "How do you find self-care and self-love when the public continually dissects your trauma?"

A: "Wow. Great question. I'm still figuring that out. I try to sleep, eat. A more regular life. Reading a book, dinner with friends. Just being."
@xyChelsea #ChelseaManning

Q: "What can we do to help trans people who are incarcerated?"

A: "Get them out of prison."
@xyChelsea #ChelseaManning

"Executives and decision makers are just as much a part of the feedback loop, so the question is who is really in control anymore, the people or the algorithms?"
@xyChelsea #ChelseaManning

"This notion of rights: We should never be in a position where we are asking an institution for rights. We should *assert* them."
@xyChelsea #ChelseaManning

Q: "What is the most dangerous technology or unethical application coming into our future?"
A: "It's an interesting question, because it is the *convergence* of different technologies that is dangerous."
@xyChelsea #ChelseaManning

"I tell technologists, Think about how your tool can be misused, not just for good. Which is why technologists need to work together outside of institutions."
@xyChelsea #ChelseaManning

"All of our cell phones are surveillance platforms. Disproportionately affecting the most vulnerable. It's already hurting people. The most dangerous technology in any moment is the one we're using and not paying attention to."
@xyChelsea #ChelseaManning

"Becoming who I am, after an intense legal battle for two years, has been immensely prideful for me."
@xyChelsea #ChelseaManning

"Being out here, you get the illusion of choice. Based on money and other stuff. I begin to question whether I was ever free to begin with, or whether any of us are."
@xyChelsea #ChelseaManning

"I was reading Queer History of the US recently, and realizing that going back to the Whitewashed history, and seeing these problems are systemic. We were always fighting these battles."
@xyChelsea #ChelseaManning

Q: "What news sources do you read and trust?"
A: "What?? - I *read* all of them. But don't trust a filter. I have no trust in any institution."
@xyChelsea #ChelseaManning

"With the industrialization of media, this narrative of 'We're here to find the truth' was all hogwash to begin with."
@xyChelsea #ChelseaManning

"I don't know what I would do differently. Because I could ask that about anything. But if I did not make the choices I did, then I wouldn't be who I am."
@xyChelsea #ChelseaManning

"Let's tall about your book."
"Oh, is this a time to plug?"
"Yeah, sure."
"Okay."
...
"Do you have a title?"
"No."
...
"I can't wait to read it."
"I can't wait to write it."
@xyChelsea #ChelseaManning