Darth Vader Supports Flock Cameras in San Diego City Council Meeting 😂
The short version: A costumed 'Darth Vader' public commenter backing Flock cameras at a San Diego council meeting, captured by R&T Media, is funny — but the underlying vote on mass ALPR surveillance is dead serious.
Our Take
Credit to R&T Media for catching this moment: a public commenter channeling Darth Vader to voice support for Flock Safety cameras at a San Diego city council meeting. It's the kind of viral clip that makes local government footage spread far beyond the people who usually sit through these meetings — and that's a good thing, because these votes deserve way more eyeballs than they usually get.
The joke works because it's absurd, but the reality behind it isn't. City councils across the country are approving network-wide ALPR deployments in meetings that draw a handful of speakers, often with little scrutiny of retention policies, data-sharing agreements, or who else gets access to the footage once it's collected. Whether the public comment is earnest, satirical, or dressed up as a Sith Lord, the vote still locks a community into a surveillance system that tracks everyone's movements, not just the people it's supposedly targeting.
If you want to know whether your own city has quietly said yes to this kind of tracking, check our camera map, and if a Flock proposal is coming up where you live, see take-action for ways to push back before the vote happens — costume optional.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of R&T Media, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.