Darth Vader endorses Flock cameras.

Our Take

Jonathan Blank's sketch of Darth Vader testifying in favor of more Flock cameras is obviously a joke, but it's the kind of joke that works because it's barely an exaggeration. Watch enough real city council footage and you'll find officials pitching ALPR expansions with the same breathless, unquestioning zeal you'd expect from the Galactic Empire's procurement office — more cameras, more "public safety," no meaningful debate about who gets watched, who has access to the data, or what happens when it leaks or gets abused.

The bit works as satire precisely because the villain doesn't have to change his pitch to fit into a real council chamber. Flock's sales pitch already sounds like something out of an authoritarian playbook: frictionless mass tracking of every vehicle that passes a camera, sold to elected officials as a harmless convenience. The comedy is Vader; the reality is a network of plate readers logging your movements without a warrant, often approved in a five-minute consent-agenda vote.

Credit to Blank for finding the absurdity in something a lot of Americans have stopped questioning. If you want to see how far that network has spread near you, check our camera map, and if your own city council is quietly voting yes on this stuff, our take-action page has ways to push back before the vote, not after.