Darth Vader backs flock cameras in San Diego
The short version: A viral clip of a San Diego council speaker in a Darth Vader mask defending Flock cameras shows how absurd the ALPR debate has become, even as the real surveillance expands.
Our Take
Buried in a rapid-fire news roundup from YouTube channel Nunya Business is a genuinely odd moment: someone in a Darth Vader mask standing up to back Flock Safety's license plate readers in San Diego. It's the kind of clip that's easy to laugh at and move past, but it's worth pausing on. When public comment periods turn into theater, it's usually because the underlying policy debate has stalled — nobody's really grappling with what a city-wide network of plate-reading cameras means for ordinary people's movements, just trading soundbites.
That's the bigger problem. Flock's pitch to city councils is always the same: crime is down, cameras help, approve the contract. What rarely gets debated with the same energy is who can access that data, how long it's kept, and whether it gets shared with ICE, other states, or private investigators — questions that matter far more than any costume on the dais. San Diego is one of hundreds of jurisdictions nationwide quietly wiring up this infrastructure, often with minimal public scrutiny until it's already live.
Credit to Nunya Business for at least surfacing the clip, even sandwiched between unrelated political stories. If you want to see whether Flock cameras are already watching your commute, check our camera map, and if your city council is about to vote on a contract, our take-action page has tools to push back before the vote, not after.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Nunya Business, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.