An El Paso teenager who wrote text files for the oldest hacker group in America, under the handle Psychedelic Warlord, grew up to run for the U.S. Senate, the presidency, and the governorship of Texas. The two facts sat quietly beside each other for thirty years — until a Reuters reporter who had spent years writing the group's history published the connection, one day after O'Rourke launched a presidential campaign. He confirmed it himself, without hedging. The oldest hacking supergroup in the country had, it turned out, been keeping a future candidate's secret.
It was stuff that I was a part of as a teenager that I'm not proud of today, and I mean that's the long and short of it.
Robert Francis "Beto" O'Rourke — b. Sept 26, 1972, El Paso, Texas FACT
HANDLE
"Psychedelic Warlord" — teenage member of Cult of the Dead Cow, the oldest hacker group in America, in El Paso in the late 1980s; ran a BBS and wrote t-files FACT
THE DRAMA
A hacker-group adolescence and a national political career — held apart for three decades, then set side by side in the middle of a campaign
REVEALED
By Joseph Menn / Reuters — confirmed to Menn in a late-2017 interview held under embargo until after the Nov 2018 Senate race, and published March 15, 2019, one day after O'Rourke launched his presidential campaign FACT
STATUS
SELF-CONFIRMED — O'Rourke acknowledged the membership himself; nothing here was a crime
This file is not an accusation; nothing here is a crime, and the central fact — that O'Rourke was a teenage member of Cult of the Dead Cow — he confirmed himself. The drama is the collision: a hacker-group adolescence and a national political career, kept apart for thirty years and then set side by side in the middle of a campaign. The archive records what the teenager wrote, what the adult said about it, and who published it — and draws no line between the two beyond the one O'Rourke drew himself.
the drama timeline
ACT I — PSYCHEDELIC WARLORD (LATE 1980s)
A teenager in El Paso finds the BBS scene and joins the oldest hacker group in the country — one of its youngest members.
LATE 1980s
A kid joins the cow
As a teenager in El Paso, O'Rourke joins Cult of the Dead Cow — the Texas-born hacker and DIY-media group founded in a Lubbock slaughterhouse in 1984 — under the handle "Psychedelic Warlord." He is one of the group's youngest members, runs a bulletin-board system, and pirates games and long-distance service, as teenagers on modems did. The membership will stay quiet for three decades.
Like every member, Psychedelic Warlord writes for the group's ezine. Some of it is acid-era teenage philosophy. One piece is fiction that will be read very differently thirty years later.
1988
The writing
O'Rourke contributes t-files and essays to cDc under his handle — the kind of BBS-era writing the group was built on. As Menn's reporting later put it, O'Rourke valued being "apart from the system" and looking at it "critically" while having fun doing it. Most of it is unremarkable teenage-hacker text; the group's t-files, his included, remain archived online.
Among the pieces attributed to "Psychedelic Warlord" is a short work of teenage fiction, dated 1988, written when O'Rourke was fifteen — a first-person story whose narrator imagines running children down with a car. It is fiction, written by a teenager. Asked about it as a forty-six-year-old candidate, O'Rourke called it "stuff that I was a part of as a teenager that I'm not proud of today." The archive records what he wrote and what he said about it, and stops there; what a fifteen-year-old's fiction does or does not say about the adult is the one inference this file will not make for you.
The teenager on the modem becomes a city councilman, a congressman, and, in 2018, one of the most-watched Senate candidates in the country — while the reporter writing cDc's history already has the story.
2005–2019
El Paso to Washington
O'Rourke serves on the El Paso City Council (2005–2011), then represents Texas's 16th district in the U.S. House of Representatives (2013–2019). None of the cDc history surfaces publicly in this period.
O'Rourke runs for the U.S. Senate against incumbent Ted Cruz. During this period, in a late-2017 interview, he acknowledges his cDc membership to Reuters' Joseph Menn — on the understanding, by Reuters' own account, that it will not be published until after the November 2018 election. He loses the Senate race narrowly; the story stays embargoed.
One day after O'Rourke launches a presidential campaign, Reuters publishes the connection. He confirms it. The oldest hacker group in America has a presidential candidate in its alumni roster.
MAR 15, 2019
Reuters publishes
Joseph Menn's Reuters special report reveals that O'Rourke — who had announced his 2020 presidential campaign the day before — was a teenage member of Cult of the Dead Cow as "Psychedelic Warlord." Within minutes it is the most-read story on Reuters.com. O'Rourke confirms the membership. The report is drawn from Menn's forthcoming book, Cult of the Dead Cow: How the Original Hacking Supergroup Might Just Save the World, published later in 2019.
Reuters' Joseph Menn describes how he uncovered O'Rourke's cDc membership and why the story was held until 2019 (TWiT Tech Podcast Network, 2019) — the reporter, in his own words, on the reveal at the center of this file.
O'Rourke seeks the Democratic presidential nomination in 2019 and ends the campaign that November. In 2022 he runs for governor of Texas against incumbent Greg Abbott and loses. Through both, the cDc file is settled history — documented, confirmed, and, per the group's own biographer, treated by cDc members more as a point of pride than a scandal.
It was a real campaign problem: a candidate for national office had a documented adolescence in a group that the FBI and press once treated as a menace, and a body of teenage writing — including a first-person murder fantasy — that any opponent could quote out of context. Landing the day after his presidential launch, the reveal was guaranteed to be read as a campaign story, and it was [3].
The timing became its own story: Reuters held the report for more than a year, through the Senate race, at O'Rourke's request and by its own account — a decision critics seized on from every direction. However the embargo is judged, it meant the disclosure surfaced on the candidate's own biggest day [4].
He owned it the moment he was asked: O'Rourke confirmed the membership without hedging and characterized the teenage fiction as "stuff... I'm not proud of today." Nothing was denied, spun, or hidden once the question was put to him [3].
It was teenage writing, decades old: the murder-fantasy piece is a short work of fiction written by a fifteen-year-old in 1988. Reading a forty-six-year-old candidate's character out of it is an inference no source makes and this archive refuses to make [6].
The group treated it as a point of pride: cDc members guarded the connection for years not because it was damning but because it was theirs to tell, and Menn's book frames the "hacking supergroup" pedigree as an asset, not a scandal. Nothing here was ever illegal [2].
YOU DECIDE
The membership is real and he confirmed it. The teenage writing is real and he owned it. What it "means" — whether a fifteen-year-old's fiction tells you anything at all about a forty-six-year-old candidate — is the one inference the archive refuses to make for you. Strip the campaign noise away and you are left with a documented fact and a self-confirmation: the oldest hacker group in America counted a future presidential candidate among its teenagers, and he never denied it.
The archive does not deify, and does not convict a man for what he wrote at fifteen. The archive keeps the t-file — and the confirmation.
evidence locker
PRIMARY / REFERENCE
Wikipedia — Beto O'RourkeATTRIBUTED — index-to-primary for the dated record: El Paso birth, the cDc membership as "Psychedelic Warlord," the City Council and U.S. House service, the 2018 Senate race, the 2020 presidential campaign, and the 2022 gubernatorial run.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beto_O'Rourke
Wikipedia — Cult of the Dead CowATTRIBUTED — the group O'Rourke belonged to: founding, the t-file ezine, the alumni roster, and Menn's 2019 "hacking supergroup" book that framed the connection as pedigree.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_of_the_Dead_Cow
Reuters — Joseph Menn, special report (Mar 15, 2019)PRIMARY — the reveal: O'Rourke as teenage cDc member "Psychedelic Warlord," his confirmation, and the "not proud of today" quote. (Reuters returns HTTP 401 to automated clients — live but bot-restricted; corroborated by the accessible sources below.)
reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-beto-orourke-idUSKCN1QW336
CONTEXT & CROSS-LINKS
Reuters BACKSTORY — "How Reuters uncovered Beto O'Rourke's teenage hacking days" (via Union Leader)ATTRIBUTED — Reuters' own account of holding the story through the 2018 Senate race and publishing in March 2019.
unionleader.com — how Reuters uncovered the story
TIME — "Beto O'Rourke Was Reportedly a Member of a 'Hacktivist' Group" (Mar 2019)ATTRIBUTED — accessible confirmation of the reveal, the "Psychedelic Warlord" handle, and cDc context.
time.com/5552860/beto-orourke-hacktivist-cdc
Report on the 1988 fiction & O'Rourke's responseATTRIBUTED — the short first-person fiction written when O'Rourke was fifteen and his verbatim "not proud of today" response. Cited for what he wrote and what he said; no inference about the adult is drawn.
foxnews.com — the 1988 fiction and O'Rourke's response
BuzzFeed News — "Beto O'Rourke's Young Hacker Days" (Mar 2019)ATTRIBUTED — the archived t-files and O'Rourke's "profound value in being able to be apart from the system" framing of the cDc years.
buzzfeednews.com — the hacker writing
Menn on TWiT — "Uncovering Beto O'Rourke as a Hacker & Cult of the Dead Cow Member" (2019)PRIMARY — the reporter, on camera, on how the story broke.
youtube.com/watch?v=6grcBfrpqL0
The standard. Beto O'Rourke is a living, prominent public figure; his teenage membership in Cult of the Dead Cow as "Psychedelic Warlord" is stated as fact because it is documented by Reuters and confirmed by him. The 1988 murder-fantasy piece is stated factually as a short work of teenage fiction, with his own characterization quoted at full strength and no inference drawn about the adult, his views, or his politics — that inference is exactly the line this file does not cross. There is no partisan framing here: he is not coded left or right, no outlet's political characterization is adopted as our voice, and his campaigns are named as facts of record, not judged. Nothing here was a crime. If a line couldn't survive scrutiny, it wouldn't be on the page.