Costumed protester mocks San Diego council's use of Flock license-plate cameras

A man in a Darth Vader costume attended a San Diego public-safety committee meeting on Thursday to ridicule the city’s decision to retain Flock Safety’s automated license-plate readers. The individual, whose identity was not disclosed, claimed the technology would help “track the rebel scum” as they moved between public spaces, echoing the fictional empire’s surveillance narrative.

He warned that the cameras could be misused for tracking children or stalking a former romantic partner, citing a recent incident in Louisiana where a sheriff’s deputy was dismissed after using the system to monitor his ex-fiancée’s vehicle more than 3,000 times.

Flock Safety, based in Atlanta, promotes its equipment as a tool for law-enforcement, highlighting successes such as locating missing persons and recovering stolen cars on its website. San Diego city council members voted in December to keep the system in place.

The technology has faced scrutiny after a man in San Diego spent a month in jail following a false link by a Flock reader to an alleged car-jacking. As of August 2026, roughly 100 municipalities have ended or declined contracts with the company, according to the activist group DeFlock.

Opposition has sometimes turned confrontational; an Ohio resident was arrested for allegedly damaging a Flock camera, though a grand jury later declined to indict him on felony vandalism charges.