San Diego Activist Protests Flock Surveillance Cameras as Darth Vader

A San Diego activist, Anthony Ralphs, spent a year urging the city council to drop its contract with Flock Safety's license-plate-reader and camera network, citing constitutional concerns over warrantless location tracking. After conventional advocacy failed and the council voted to continue the program, he appeared at meetings in a Darth Vader costume, and the protest went globally viral. The episode illustrates how automated camera and license-plate networks are expanding into routine civic life with limited pushback, part of a broader pattern of persistent, integrated identity-tracking infrastructure worth watching.