Man dressed as Darth Vader tells city council members that the emperor is a “fan of Flock'
The short version: A Darth Vader cosplayer stole the show at a San Diego council meeting, using Star Wars satire to warn that Flock's ALPR network serves empire-style control.
Our Take
Credit to KHQA for capturing this one: a guy in a full Darth Vader getup walked up to the public comment podium in San Diego and told the council the emperor himself is a fan of Flock Safety. It's a bit, sure, but it's a bit with teeth. Costumed public comment is one of the oldest tricks in the civic engagement book precisely because it works — it gets clipped, it gets shared, and it gets people who'd otherwise tune out a zoning-adjacent agenda item to actually watch a council meeting about license plate readers.
Strip away the cape and the joke lands on something real: these systems are being bought and deployed with shockingly little public debate, often sold to councils as a quiet line item rather than what it actually is — a dragnet that logs every car that passes a camera, whether or not anyone's suspected of anything. 'The emperor is a fan' isn't just a punchline. It's a pretty accurate read on how surveillance infrastructure tends to serve whoever holds power, not just the stated mission of catching car thieves.
San Diego already has a real Flock footprint, and this moment is a reminder that public comment is one of the few levers residents have before contracts get renewed or expanded. If you want to see what's already watching your streets, check our camera map, and if you'd rather skip the costume and still make your voice heard, our take-action page has what you need.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of KHQA, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.