For liberty, for privacy, and for Rand Paul for President.
William Alden / Via BuzzFeed News
If they ventured outside on Saturday, maybe even took a walk to Dolores Park, the programmers would have been bathed in glorious sunshine and surrounded by rainbow-clad revelers.
Instead, for 24 hours starting that afternoon, smack in the middle of San Francisco's Pride weekend festivities, they sequestered themselves in a harshly lit co-working space in the city's SoMa neighborhood, coding for liberty, for privacy, and for Senator Rand Paul.
His presidential campaign had organized what is known in tech circles as a hackathon — basically, an all-night software-writing orgy — with a political twist. The campaign had challenged the programmers, grouped in competing teams, to make software applications for "protecting liberty and privacy." The winning team would get to meet Paul. The top two would get copies of the Constitution, signed by the libertarian-leaning senator.
The Rand Paul for President campaign cared a lot about this hackathon. Ron Schnell, the campaign's recently hired chief technology officer, told BuzzFeed News it was "a good starting point to ramp up to the most tech-savvy campaign in history," and that it was "pretty much the first thing I started working on" after joining the campaign in May.
Schnell pointed out the event had its own hashtag, #HackForRand. The senator wasn't actually there, but a close-to-life-size foam board cutout was. The image of Paul stared serenely at the programmers with a Mona Lisa smile. Beside it hung two campaign signs: "DEFEAT THE WASHINGTON MACHINE." "UNLEASH THE AMERICAN DREAM."
Ron Schnell, the campaign's chief technology officer.
Brendan Klinkenberg / Via BuzzFeed News
William Alden / Via BuzzFeed News
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