TL;DR: San Diego resident Anthony Ralphs spent a year showing up to City Council in suits, citing Chatrie v. United States and asking for a vote on the city's Flock Safety camera contract. After the council voted in December 2025 to keep the program, Ralphs returned on August 19 in a Darth Vader cape, mask, mechanized breathing, and voice changer. The three-minute speech, opening with "The emperor is a fan of Flock," went viral internationally. On Monday, August 25, he came back without the mask and named himself, asking the five council members who voted for Flock: "When will this end?" [1]
A Year in Suits, Then a Cape
Anthony Ralphs has been speaking against Flock Safety's cameras at San Diego City Council for a year. He started the way organizers are taught to start: dressed up, prepared, citing case law. "I did all the right things. I wore the suits. I said all the correct talking points. I made all the compelling arguments," he told 404 Media in a phone interview [1].
Ralphs reached for the precedent that governs geofence warrants and location data. "It seemed like no matter how many cases I brought up, no matter how many violations of the Constitution this technology breaks, no matter how many constituents, no matter how many organizations, no matter how well I dress, no matter how fine my talking points, they weren't listening," he said [1]. The Supreme Court case he kept raising is Chatrie v. United States, which challenged the constitutionality of geofence warrants, the legal tool that lets police collect location history from every phone that passed through a defined area.
His first council meeting was in December 2025. Hundreds of people showed up in person, joined via Zoom, or submitted online comments opposing Flock. After six hours of deliberation, the council voted to continue the program anyway. "After that meeting, where city council decided that none of their constituents' opinions mattered and that they were going to vote how they wanted to vote regardless... After that, the movement was so discouraged, and all of us were so deflated that it was really hard to summon the collective energy," Ralphs said [1].
He came back the next week and found an empty chamber. So he started showing up more often. Once every two weeks, then weekly, then twice a week, and by spring 2026 he was at every council and subcommittee meeting. By May and June he was organizing other speakers. The Suits Phase had not produced a vote.
The Vader Turn
On August 19, Ralphs walked up to the podium in a Darth Vader cape and mask, with mechanized breathing and a voice changer. He opened: "The emperor is a fan of Flock." For three minutes, speaking as Vader, he laid out why the Empire depends on Flock's warrantless network of automatic license plate readers and cameras [1].
The video went extremely viral. Coverage was published in Singapore (Straits Times) and translated to Spanish and Arabic [1]. For one local reporter the moment was a familiar beat: anti-surveillance activists reach for spectacle when the council chamber stops listening.
Ralphs framed the costume as a deliberate choice. "I think it's a character that resonates. He's like an archetype for evil. He's an archetype for the Empire," he said. "Vader is always a servant of the Empire, right? So [Flock] is nothing but tools for the servants of the Empire. Framing it into that context, I think was what was needed to bring this conversation into like a theatrical global component." He called Flock "such an Orwellian technology being utilized by such comic book villain forces of evil trying to do dastardly things" [1].
On the question of whether the character was a stunt, Ralphs was direct. "This wasn't just some antic from somebody who just decided to show up one day and make some noise. This was a thought out plan that was exacted only after cumulative frustration from hundreds of people being ignored and months and months and months of trying things quote unquote the right way and it not working," he said [1].
Monday, Without the Mask
On the afternoon of Monday, August 25, Ralphs returned to the council. He carried the mask to the podium wheezing on its own and set it on the table. "I think we know who the bad guy is now. But I think what the whole world wants to know is who wants to be the good guy," he said. He told the room he had interview requests "this entire week," then asked his real question: "Of the five council members that voted for Flock: When will this end? When will you listen to the vast majority of your constituents?" [1]
Ralphs is an event producer who has hosted raves and music festivals in the San Diego area for 13 years, and he founded Eden Art Garden, an event space about an hour outside the city. He has since started DeFlock San Diego and works with the Transparent and Responsible Use of Surveillance Technology San Diego (TRUST SD) Coalition, a local privacy and anti-surveillance group [1].
His pitch for what comes next is unusually practical for a protest leader: recruit people who already know how to fill a room. "But now we need the musicians, we need the artists, we need the painters, the actors, we need the thespians to bring this together and get some wheels on the movement to help it gain traction," he said [1].
Why It Matters
San Diego's standoff is not a one-off. The same week Ralphs took the podium as Vader, an Oviedo, Florida police officer printed fake Flock cameras on a personal 3D printer at home, set them out as bait, and arrested a man for knocking one down on three felony charges. Flock's CEO told Ohio officials on a recorded call that 404 Media's reporting on Flock cameras being used to track a woman who self-administered an abortion was "entirely false." Court records obtained by EFF say otherwise. The Electronic Frontier Foundation published its policy position that ALPR mass surveillance "should not exist" [1][2].
For a reader who has been watching the Flock cluster, Ralphs is the human face of a story that is usually told in spreadsheets and council memos. Cities cancel Flock contracts. Statehouses file deletion bills. The Fourth Amendment question waits in the courts. None of that moves a council chamber the way a three-minute speech from the Dark Lord apparently can.
If you want to understand why San Diego's Flock fight is hard to settle inside the chamber, our guide to finding and avoiding Flock cameras explains what the hardware is, and our explainer on how the national Flock database actually works walks through what one camera does once it reads a plate.
What to Watch
The five council members. Ralphs named them on Monday. The question is whether any of them revisit the vote, or whether San Diego's Flock contract continues to renew on schedule [1].
TRUST SD and DeFlock San Diego. Ralphs is one of a handful of named organizers tying the local fight to a broader coalition. Watch whether the Vader moment turns into recurring attendance at council, not just a viral clip [1].
The national Flock cluster. Oviedo's decoy sting, the Ohio call, the EFF position, and the council votes in San Diego and other cities are all legs of the same story: the network is growing, the legal record is filling up, and activists are running out of patience for polite hearings [2].
Sources
- 404 Media, Samantha Cole - The Man Behind the Anti-Flock Darth Vader Mask Wants to Know: 'When Will This End?' (August 25, 2026). https://www.404media.co/darth-vader-flock-san-diego-city-council-interview/
- State of Surveillance - Daily Surveillance Briefing: August 27, 2026 (August 27, 2026). /news/daily-surveillance-briefing-august-27-2026