Chelsea Manning: Big tech firms will have an interest in working with the Trump administration
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The security threat that Donald Trump poses remains uncertain but increased vigilance will be necessary once the President-elect re-enters the White House next January, Chelsea Manning has said.
Speaking to the at this year’s Web Summit in Lisbon, the whistleblower turned security consultant said that while it is important to maintain digital privacy regardless of the administration, the impact of Trump’s re-election will likely echo that of other far-right governments across the globe.
Asked how difficult it will be to regulate and trust big tech under a Trump presidency, Ms Manning said: “From a technical standpoint, nothing changes under the hood. Regardless of who is in charge, privacy still matters.
“But large companies obviously have an interest in working with the administration, regardless of who it is. It just so happens that this one is uniquely and openly authoritarian.”
“This is not the first establishment of a hybrid authoritarian regime in the world. This has happened in other parts of the world. You can debate whether that is Turkey, Russia, Poland, Hungary and obviously Brazil,” Ms Manning told the .
The security consultant and activist, who in 2013 was sentenced to 35 years in prison after being found guilty of espionage before having her sentence commuted by Barack Obama in 2017, also warned that certain groups of people will be particularly vulnerable under a Trump presidency.
Ms Manning, who during her time as an army intelligence agent in Iraq leaked more than 750,000 classified documents to WikiLeaks, said she is still trying to figure out what the threat model is for certain people based on proposed policies and those making the decisions.
“It’s an ongoing effort, but I hope to know by January,” she continued.
Now working as Chief Security Officer for Nym Technologies, a privacy and security firm aimed at protecting people’s metadata, Ms Manning was joined at this year’s Web Summit by chief executive of the company, Harry Halpin.
Speaking to reporters, Mr Halpin said that further surveillance power is more likely to be actively used with Trump in the White House, the impacts of which will be felt across the Atlantic.
“The United States will probably get more and more hostile towards Europe, and Europe should be more concerned.”