Chelsea Manning is living in Brooklyn, New York. If you were looking for her in a prison cell or a government building, you’re about six years too late. Honestly, the person she is today—a security consultant, data scientist, and public speaker—might seem unrecognizable to anyone who only remember her as the 22-year-old Army private who sparked a global firestorm.
She’s busy. Like, "trying to reclaim fifteen years of lost time" busy.
Most recently, she’s been making the rounds on the tech circuit, speaking at events like the Mozilla Festival (MozFest) in Barcelona and Web Summit in Lisbon. But she isn't just talking about the past. She’s obsessed with the future—specifically, how our data is being turned into a commodity and why our digital lives feel so overwhelming. Basically, she’s trying to figure out how to live a human life in a world that wants to turn every interaction into a transaction.
Where is Chelsea Manning right now and what is she doing?
Currently, Manning works as a security consultant and data scientist. She’s spent a lot of time recently collaborating with Nym, a company focused on digital privacy and decentralized infrastructure. It’s a natural fit. After spending years in the crosshairs of the world’s most powerful surveillance apparatus, she’s now teaching people how to hide from it.
She hasn't just been hiding behind a computer screen, though.
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In 2025 and early 2026, her focus shifted toward the ethics of Artificial Intelligence. She’s been vocal about the need for "medical-grade" accountability in AI. Her argument? If an algorithm is going to decide who gets a loan or who gets flagged by the police, the people who build it should be held to the same standards as doctors or lawyers. No more "black box" excuses.
Life after the headlines
It’s easy to forget that she’s only in her late 30s. "I was very young when all this stuff happened," she told EL PAÍS in late 2025. She spent the bulk of her 20s behind bars, first in pre-trial detention (which the UN called "cruel and unusual"), then in military prison at Fort Leavenworth, and later back in jail for refusing to testify against WikiLeaks in 2019.
Now, she’s trying to be a person.
She’s mentioned in interviews that she doesn’t have a lot of "normal" life experience. Most of her adulthood was defined by the military, activism, or incarceration. So, right now, she’s doing things most of us take for granted—traveling, going to parties (though she hates how apps like Partiful track your social life), and just... existing. She lives a relatively quiet life in Brooklyn when she isn't flying to London or Spain to give a keynote address.
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The transition from whistleblower to technologist
Many people still want to talk about the 2010 leaks—the "Collateral Murder" video and the diplomatic cables. But Manning seems more interested in how the world has changed since then. She’s noted that back in 2010, the government had a tighter grip on the "truth." Today, we’re flooded with so much information that a massive leak might not even move the needle.
"If someone were to publish a massive leak today," she said recently, "people would say 'oh, this isn't true.'"
This shift is why she’s pivoted to security consulting. She’s helping journalists and activists protect their sources in an era where surveillance isn't just something the government does—it’s the business model of every app on your phone.
Recent projects and public life
- Security Stack Advocacy: She’s surprisingly a fan of Apple’s hardware security. She’s told PCMag that from a technical perspective, they have some of the most secure consumer devices, which is a bit of a hot take in the privacy world.
- The "Unlearning" Tour: In her 2025 keynote at MozFest, she talked about the "courage to unlearn" the myths we’re told about safety and control.
- Privacy Infrastructure: She continues to work with decentralized networks to ensure that the internet remains a tool for people, not just power.
Staying out of the spotlight (mostly)
You won't find her in the news every day like you did in 2013 or 2017. And that seems intentional. She’s survived a 35-year sentence (commuted by Obama), multiple suicide attempts in custody, and a second stint in jail for contempt. She’s paid her "heavy price," as she once put it.
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The Maryland Senate run in 2018 is long over. The memoir README.txt is out on the shelves. Now, she’s just Chelsea—a Brooklynite with a very specialized set of skills and a deep skepticism of how the modern web works.
If you want to keep up with her, look toward tech and privacy conferences rather than political rallies. She’s less of a politician and more of a digital architect these days, trying to build the "circulatory system of thought" into something that doesn't bleed us dry of our privacy.
To understand the systems she’s currently critiquing, you should look into how metadata is collected by third-party event-planning apps and the rise of decentralized privacy networks like Nym. Keeping your own data secure starts with realizing that "free" services often come at the cost of your digital autonomy.