A man dressed as Darth Vader used the non-agenda public comment period at a San Diego City Council committee meeting Wednesday night to deliver a mock endorsement of the city’s Flock Safety cameras, telling members, “This is what the emperor needs.”
Breathing through the character’s mask at a Public Safety and Livable Neighborhoods Committee hearing, the man argued the more than 550 Flock cameras installed around San Diego would help authorities track ordinary residents the way the Galactic Empire hunted rebels.
“Flock cameras are not only following the license plate readers,” [the unidentified man dressed as] Vader highlighted. “They are following children in parks and gymnasiums, and we need this. I need this so I can stalk my ex-girlfriend. How will the people trust this city council when this city council continues to vote for surveillance technology that imprisons them?”
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The ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties wants the city to walk away from Flock entirely, arguing the camera network poses a serious threat to residents’ privacy.
Scrutiny has grown around a Flock program called Nova, which San Diego police began piloting late last year. Critics say the city never subjected the platform to the public review its surveillance ordinance calls for, and that neither the City Council nor the city’s privacy advisory board learned of the arrangement until after it became public. Police have said Nova was never activated and that they have no plans to use it.
In one instance, San Diego police jailed Hugo Parra for nearly a month over an attempted carjacking after a Flock alert flagged his car, even though the system’s location data placed the vehicle five miles from the crime scene at the time. His attorney said plainly that “it was impossible for it to be in both locations at once.”
The department credits the broader program with helping make more than 400 arrests and recover roughly $6 million in stolen property, and says vehicle theft fell about 20% between 2023 and 2024.
More than 50 other jurisdictions have reportedly dropped Flock contracts this year amid similar concerns. In Florida, a cop was arrested for allegedly using the system to track his estranged wife.
