'Darth Vader' speaks out in support of Flock cameras, says 'The Emperor is a fan'
The short version: A man in a Darth Vader costume mockingly endorsed Flock cameras at a San Diego council meeting, turning public comment into a pointed satire of surveillance overreach.
Our Take
Credit to Local 12 for capturing this moment, because sometimes satire lands harder than any policy memo. A guy in a Darth Vader costume telling a San Diego government meeting that "the Emperor is a fan" of Flock cameras is funny, but it's also dead accurate. Mass license plate surveillance isn't a neutral public-safety tool — it's the kind of infrastructure an authoritarian would dream up: constant tracking, centralized data, zero meaningful oversight, and vendors more than happy to expand the empire one city contract at a time.
The joke works because it's not much of an exaggeration. Flock's network already logs billions of plate scans nationwide, often with little transparency about who can access that data, how long it's kept, or who it gets shared with. When local officials wave through these systems without real debate, they're not just buying cameras — they're building the architecture for exactly the kind of unaccountable power this costume was mocking. A guy in a cape got more honest commentary into that meeting than most consultants do in a glossy slide deck.
If you want to see how far this has already spread, check our camera map to find out what's watching your own neighborhood. And if you'd rather not wait for your city council's own Vader moment, our take-action page has concrete steps to push back before the surveillance state gets too comfortable in your town.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of LOCAL 12, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.