'Darth Vader' Hijacks San Diego Council Meeting to Attack Surveillance Tech

Our Take

Credit where it's due: Christopher Canole's Darth Vader stunt at San Diego City Council, as captured by Hook Global, did what a hundred earnest public comment cards never could — it got people to actually watch a meeting about license plate readers. Underneath the costume was a serious point. Flock's ALPR network doesn't just catch a stolen car once in a while; it builds a rolling log of who drives where, when, and how often, and that data can sit around long enough to paint a detailed picture of anyone's daily life, kids included.

Wrapping that warning in Star Wars imagery is a gimmick, sure, but it's not far off. An empire doesn't need stormtroopers on every corner when it has cameras on every corner instead. Canole also connected the surveillance debate to San Diego's homelessness and detention policies, arguing that tech marketed as public safety can just as easily become a tool for managing and monitoring people the city would rather not deal with. That's the exact argument we keep making about Flock deployments nationwide — the mission creeps quietly from finding stolen cars to tracking everybody.

City councils rarely get pushback loud enough to make headlines, which is precisely why stunts like this work. If you want to skip the costume and go straight to the data, check our camera map to see what's already watching your block, and hit take action if you'd rather speak up at your own council meeting than wait for a Sith Lord to do it for you.