Chelsea Manning will be speaking at the Fifth Annual Aaron Swartz Day Evening Event – Saturday, November 4, 2017 – 7:30 pm – TICKETS (Just going to the hackathon? It’s free.)

From October 8, 2017, in New York City (at the New Yorker Festival):

I think the most important think that we have to learn, because I think it’s been forgotten, is that every single one of us has the ability to change things. Each and every one of us has this ability. We need to look to each other and realize our values are what we care about, and then assert them, and say these things, and to take actions in our political discourse to make that happen. Because it’s not going to happen at the Ballot Box. It’s not.

Make your own decisions. Make your own choices. Make your own judgement.

You have to pay attention. For engineers in particular. We design and we develop systems, but the systems that we develop can be used for different things. The software that I was using in Iraq for predictive analysis was the same that you would use in marketing. It’s the same tools. It’s the same analysis. I believe engineers and software engineers and technologists. (That’s a new term that came out while I was away :-)

I guess technologists should realize that we have an ethical obligation to make decisions that go beyond just meeting deadlines or creating a product. What actually takes some chunks of time is to say “what are the consequences of this system?” “How can this be used?” “How can this be misused?” Let’s try to figure out how we can mitigate a software system from being misused. Or decide whether you want to implement it at all. There are systems where, if misused, could be very dangerous. — Chelsea E. Manning, October 8, 2017.

Excerpt from the WNYC The New Yorker Radio Hour (starts at 31:45):
http://www.wnyc.org/story/chelsea-manning-life-after-prison/