BS BULLETIN
- A man dressed as Darth Vader delivered a brilliantly sarcastic defense of San Diego’s Flock surveillance cameras: “The Emperor is a fan of Flock.”
- San Diego police operate roughly 500 automated license-plate readers, while privacy advocates and some elected officials are pushing the city to reconsider the technology.
- The stunt lands amid a growing bipartisan national backlash over Flock, with dozens of cities rejecting or canceling contracts this year.
There are moments when democracy produces a speaker perfectly suited to the issue at hand. Winston Churchill confronting tyranny. Ronald Reagan demanding that Gorbachev tear down the Berlin Wall. And now Darth Vader explaining government surveillance to the San Diego City Council.
A man dressed head-to-toe as the Star Wars villain appeared before the council’s Public Safety and Livable Neighborhoods Committee this week to deliver a devastatingly funny attack on the city’s use of Flock Safety cameras — by pretending to be their biggest supporter.
He even approached the microphone with Vader’s unmistakable mechanical breathing. “This is what the Emperor needs,” Vader declared, explaining that the technology would help the Empire locate “rebel scum” and the hidden base on Hoth. The council, to its enormous credit, played along and addressed him as “Darth Vader.”
Darth Vader comes out in favor of Flock cameras pic.twitter.com/YL3jaiwIEx
— Orwell Day (@OrwellDay) August 20, 2026
Vader then explained that Flock could help him find Luke Skywalker as he traveled around the galaxy in his X-Wing. “This technology is a necessary, necessary force,” he said.
And then came the killer line: “The Emperor is a fan of Flock.” Satire accomplished.
But behind the comedy is a privacy fight becoming much bigger than one guy wearing a cape at a California government meeting.
San Diego police currently use roughly 500 Flock automated license-plate recognition cameras around the city. The cameras capture license plates along with information about vehicles, giving police a searchable tool that authorities say can help locate suspects and vehicles connected to crimes.
Law enforcement has a legitimate argument here: technology that quickly finds a stolen car, kidnapping suspect or dangerous criminal can be tremendously valuable. The question is what happens when a crime-fighting tool becomes a system capable of reconstructing the movements of ordinary Americans who aren’t suspected of anything.
That is where Vader’s comedy got considerably sharper. He sarcastically praised the ability to follow people from “playground to playground,” before adding: “I need this so I can stalk my ex-girlfriend.”
Funny line. Uncomfortably relevant concern.
Flock has been dealing with mounting scrutiny over misuse of its technology. Just last week, the company announced additional safeguards, including cutting its default retention of movement data from 30 days to seven and deploying auditing technology designed to flag suspicious searches by law-enforcement users.
The company and police departments using the technology maintain that Flock can be an effective crime-fighting tool and that access is restricted and audited. But the backlash has become decidedly bipartisan.
Civil-liberties groups on the left have raised alarms over privacy and immigration enforcement. Conservatives and Republican lawmakers have questioned whether a nationwide network of cameras capable of recording Americans’ movements is compatible with the Fourth Amendment and limited government.
And this is no longer some obscure collection of cameras. Recent reporting puts Flock’s nationwide network at more than 120,000 cameras, while at least 56 cities have rejected or canceled Flock contracts in 2026 alone.
San Diego has had controversies of its own. Axios reported earlier this year that police quietly signed a one-year pilot agreement for Flock Nova, a platform capable of integrating information from license-plate readers, video, 911 calls, police records and other sources. Police said the platform was exempt from the city’s surveillance-review requirements because it analyzed already-approved data; the department also said it hadn’t used Nova and no longer planned to.
Which brings us back to Lord Vader. Before leaving the podium, he questioned how citizens are supposed to trust government officials who continually approve surveillance technology, then advised one councilwoman:
“You must work on your Jedi mind tricks.”
Frankly, three minutes of Darth Vader may have explained the civil-liberties problem better than a 200-page congressional report.
MY QUICK TAKE
I don’t know who this man is, but somebody buy him another cape. This is how you do political satire.
No screaming. No throwing paint on a building. No blocking traffic while some poor guy is trying to get to work.
Just walk into city hall dressed as the second-most-famous authoritarian in movie history and announce: The Emperor loves your surveillance system.
Message received.
Yes, I want police catching carjackers. Yes, I want them finding kidnappers. Yes, if somebody steals my car, please feel free to use every camera between here and Tatooine to find the bum. But “this technology can catch criminals” is not the end of the conversation.
Government power has a funny habit of beginning with “Don’t worry, this is only for the bad guys” and ending with somebody explaining why a database search of your whereabouts is perfectly reasonable because, after all, if you’ve done nothing wrong…
Nope.
The Fourth Amendment wasn’t written because the Founders worried George III wouldn’t have enough information about them. So give law enforcement effective tools — with warrants, strict rules, audits and real consequences for abuse. Because if your government surveillance program reaches the point where Darth Vader can walk into the meeting and make a convincing argument for it without breaking character…
Maybe check the settings. And may the Fourth be with you.
DBS WIRE SOURCES:
- Fox News — ‘Darth Vader’ uses dark side to mock controversial surveillance cameras: ‘The Emperor is a fan of Flock’
- New York Post — Darth Vader crashes San Diego hearing to defend Flock spy cams: ‘This is what the emperor needs’
- 404 Media — ‘Darth Vader’ Wants Flock in San Diego
- Axios San Diego — Flock backlash grows as San Diego keeps its cameras
- KPBS — San Diego community groups push back against Flock cameras
- NBC 7 San Diego — Surveillance company Flock moves to increase oversight after police misuse
