At the San Diego City Council’s most recent budget meeting, Sith Lord Darth Vader had some points to make. Between gasping breaths, Vader praised the council’s recent votes to renew its contract with the surveillance company Flock Safety, which has been making headlines recently as more and more stories of police officers abusing its tools have continued to come out—and as a WIRED review of code for a new AI tool already in use by some police departments has made clear that it is watching far more than just license plates.
“The emperor is a fan of Flock. 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 recording of the video has gone viral, reaching millions of people on TikTok and Instagram.
The man behind the stunt is Anthony Ralphs, a San Diego-based DJ, event producer, and agriculture consultant who has spent the better part of the past year advocating against the city’s support of Flock’s use by the San Diego Police Department.
Initially, Ralphs thought about keeping his identity hidden behind the Vader mask—a 2004 Hasbro model. But he says that as the video has picked up more and more steam, he decided to “take ownership” of the stunt that put Flock and surveillance technology on the minds and feeds of millions of people around the world.
WIRED spoke to Ralphs about advocacy, crafting a costume, and the role that art can play in civic engagement.
This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
VITTORIA ELLIOTT: How did this start for you? Was this your first city council meeting?
ANTHONY RALPHS: No. My first time attending a city council meeting was sometime last summer or last fall. But really the most consequential city council meeting that I attended, that really got me in the fold of starting to regularly participate in my civic duties, was this issue of Flock. It was my third, or maybe my fourth, city council meeting back on December 9th, and the city council was putting this up to a vote, whether to continue to use Flock.
The story back then was that the city council didn't exactly know what the technology was. The police were touting it as a force multiplier. There were over 300 people at that vote, the meeting room was completely full, and I would say 95 percent of the people there were saying they didn’t want Flock. But the council voted for it anyway. It was extremely discouraging, and it really lit a fire under me to start going and regularly participating.
I came to the following city council meeting, and I was one of maybe five people in the city council chambers, and there had been close to 300 just a couple of weeks prior. That moment was eye-opening. I realized not everyone can be there all the time to do this, and that's what we need. We need consistent advocacy. So I took time off of school to be able to do that.
Why did this feel so critical?
Our city's $120 million deficit. They cut several arts programs, and while they did that, they also provided the $2.2 million for Flock's contract, even when people in those communities that are being most heavily policed say that they don’t want this. And now, we have the case of Hugo Parra, a local San Diegan who was falsely imprisoned and sat in prison for 30 days due to an erroneous tag by the Flock cameras. [Flock did not immediately respond to a request for comment on this matter.]
He and his friend, who was also arrested, are both suing this city for $1.5 million. So by the time the city ends up settling those two lawsuits, it will probably add another million dollars to that contract.
What were you studying?
I was taking classes at San Diego Mesa College and San Diego City College, I had been studying theater and labor studies, and I got my certificate in labor studies. As a student, I interned for the American Federation of Teachers, the local chapter here in San Diego. Our job was to organize and we would get real hands-on training going to strike lines and showing solidarity. We would canvas for candidates, and we were doing phone banks, so we got a really comprehensive experience of what it's like to participate civically in the real world. I would DJ for the people on the picket line once a week before school, and that really showed me the power of art specifically to make a political impact.
What ultimately led to the choice to attend the council meeting as Darth Vader?
I was always interested in guerrilla theater, I studied it in a playwriting class in school. But this was really a last resort. I had been going to meetings for months, and I have a lot of sympathy for these representatives, because I am the vice chair of my local planning group. I know what it’s like to sit there and get dunked on by random people. So, I did my homework on all of them. I learned what they voted for, what they've voted against, the progressive policies that they had enacted that I could support. I went so far as to bring them flowers.
But at a certain point, it felt like we've exhausted all of the efforts. We did it the right way, and they still continued to ignore their constituents.
I was in the shower one day and it hit me. I was trying to think of how I could satirize their points, because I realized they seemed to have a lack of self-awareness. I realized we're not getting through to them, and they are not listening to us and there's no consequences for them not listening to us. So, maybe we need to show them how silly they're being.
How did you prepare?
I am a huge Star Wars fan. I used to watch the movies almost every day as a kid. In the lead-up to the meeting, I rewatched all the movies again, the original ones, trying to get his gesticulations down. I got a silk cape, I think it was from Turkey. I found the original 2004 Hasbro helmet, and I chose this one because it had a voice changer in it. But I had been told the voice changer was a little bit gimmicky, so I thought “I'll just replicate his voice myself.” I wasn’t able to get everything I wanted for the costume, but I knew that the August 19th meeting was going to be the big one, because the ACLU was going to be at that committee meeting. So I pulled together some stuff I already had, and I think it turned out well.
The helmet actually came in handy, because there were buttons on it to make noises. At certain points, I'd stand up to go to the bathroom and I'd hit the breathing button—you know, the Darth Vader breathing sound. At one point I turned around, and I'm right within earshot of the chief of police, and I pushed the button and it said, “Your powers are weak!”
What do you hope this achieves?
I want to make it cool to engage in one's civic responsibility again. City council meetings don't have to be stale rooms with boring thoughts presented in unoriginal ways. They can be places where we bring our own art, where we bring the strength of our intellect and our moral fortitude with our talent and creativity.
This sparked a global conversation about luxury surveillance and living under Big Brother, and in Orwellian-digital, fully surveilled hellscape. Some people didn't know what Flock was a week ago. We've reframed the narrative from “this is a ‘necessary evil’” to “If Darth Vader finds it a ‘necessary evil,’ that should make us and reflect on whether or not we need it.”