'Darth Vader' supports Flock Cameras in humorous act at city council meeting

Our Take

Credit to ABC7 News Bay Area for capturing a moment that's funnier than most local government footage has any right to be: a man in a Vader getup stepping up to public comment to declare the Empire's enthusiasm for automated license plate readers. It's a bit, but it's a sharp one. Vader's whole management style was 'track everyone, trust no one, choke out dissent' — which is not a bad one-line description of a wall-to-wall ALPR network feeding a national database that local agencies don't fully control.

The joke lands because San Diego, like hundreds of other cities, is being asked to approve this technology through the same public comment process that usually decides parking permits and pothole budgets — a five-minute window that's supposed to substitute for real oversight of a system that logs every car's movements, forever, for anyone with database access. Costumes aside, the actual debate happening in that room is deadly serious: who gets to see where you drive, how long they keep it, and whether 'public safety' is doing any real work in that sentence once the cameras are bolted to the pole.

If your city council is having this same conversation — or hasn't started yet — check our map to see what's already watching your streets, and use our take-action guide to show up before the vote, not after.