‘Darth Vader’ mockingly supports Flock cameras at San Diego meeting

Our Take

Credit to TRT World for capturing this one: a man in a full Darth Vader getup stepped up to the mic at a San Diego city meeting and delivered mock praise for Flock Safety's camera network, playing up exactly the kind of unchecked, empire-building surveillance apparatus these systems can become. Satire like this works because it doesn't have to exaggerate much — the comparison writes itself when you're talking about a private company quietly building a license-plate tracking grid with minimal oversight and vague retention rules.

It's easy to laugh, but the joke only lands because it's rooted in something real: city councils across the country are approving these contracts with little public debate, often without asking who can access the data, how long it's kept, or whether it's being shared with federal agencies or across state lines. A costume and a punchline got more attention at this meeting than a stack of policy memos might have — that's worth noting for anyone trying to get through to their own local officials.

If you want to see whether Flock or similar ALPR systems are already watching your neighborhood, check our camera map, and if you'd rather not wait for a guy in a cape to make your city council pay attention, head over to our take-action page for ways to push back now.