The Emperor is a fan: Darth Vader backs San Diego Flock surveillance cams

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Set us as preferred In a galaxy not so far, far away — well, in San Diego — the controversial police use of Flock surveillance cameras that photograph and record license plate numbers has at least one prominent supporter.Darth Vader.“The Emperor is a fan of Flock,” a person wearing a full-body costume of the “Star Wars” villain told a committee of the San Diego City Council this week, referencing Darth Vader’s evil, power-hungry boss, Emperor Palpatine, ruler of the Galactic Empire.

“And we must continue utilizing Flock technologies so that we can follow and surveil the Rebel scum as they move from playground to playground, from playground to pool, from pool to gymnasium,” the person said during public comments at a Wednesday meeting of the Public Safety and Livable Neighborhoods Committee.The cosplayer, who breathed heavily into the microphone à la the movie villain, was formally called to the podium by the name Darth Vader.It was a stance a bit out of sync with silver screen Darth, who famously told an Imperial stooge who got too braggadocious about the Empire’s planet-destroying Death Star: “Don’t be too proud of this technological terror you’ve constructed.”But in a twist not quite as big as Darth telling Luke Skywalker he was his daddy, the bad guy in black showed up to the government meeting in San Diego to be sarcastic about Flock cameras.

He didn’t actually support them at all.Nor, it turns out, did a lot of people in the audience, who hoisted signs from the American Civil Liberties Union reading: “Get the Flock Out!”The cosplayer’s sarcastic endorsement comes as Flock Safety — the company whose more than 120,000 artificial intelligence-enabled license plate readers can be found along roadsides in every state but Alaska — comes under increasing scrutiny by lawmakers, civil righ...