“Darth Vader” Apoya el Uso de las Cámaras Flock en San Diego

Our Take

Credit to N+ Univision for capturing a public comment moment that says more through satire than most policy briefings manage in an hour. A man in a Darth Vader costume telling a San Diego City Council that 'the Emperor is a fan of Flock' isn't just a punchline — it's a pointed civics lesson. When you have to dress as history's most iconic authoritarian to make your point land, you're highlighting exactly how absurd it is that networked license plate cameras get rubber-stamped as routine public safety upgrades.

The joke works because it's not much of an exaggeration. Flock's ALPR network logs every passing vehicle, builds travel patterns, and shares data across a growing web of law enforcement agencies with minimal transparency or judicial oversight. Calling it a tool for hunting 'rebel scum' is satire, sure, but it's also a fair description of how blanket surveillance infrastructure inevitably gets used against whoever a given administration decides to target next — protesters, immigrants, journalists, ex-partners of cops. The costume is theater; the underlying warning is not.

San Diego is just one of thousands of jurisdictions now blanketed in these cameras, often approved with little public debate. If you want to see how close this dragnet is to your own neighborhood, check our camera map, and if your city council hasn't heard from a real person yet — Vader costume optional — our take-action page has what you need to show up and say something.