San Diego City Council

Today, we're gonna talk to one of those people.

Anthony Ralphs went viral after showing up to a San Diego City Council meeting dressed as none other than Darth Vader in an unconventional effort to make his community heard after the council voted to keep Flock despite the objections of hundreds of residents.

After hearing from Anthony about his organizing, we'll dig into these systems with Sarah Hamid from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

She spent the past couple of years working directly with communities across the country to challenge Flock Surveillance System and get cities to cancel their contracts.

Uh, so the ICE raid is very effective.

It's working in San Diego, and somehow, that has caused Council Member Steven Whitburn of the San Diego City Council to change his mind on the cameras.

Now he wants to shut them off.

San Diego could soon shut them down.

Lou Penrose on News Radio 600 KOGO.

So the decision to shut off the flock cameras, these automated license plate reading cameras that the San Diego Police Department support, uh, was at, as a result of the decision by San Diego Council Member Steven Whitburn at a press conference this morning.

He's on the Public Safety Committee, and he has voted in favor of the cameras as a matter of public safety, but he said that conditions have changed, and he's worried that the ICE raids will be helped by the flock cameras.

So we gotta shut 'em off because, you know, we have to protect the illegals.

So I'm Nicole Crosby.

I'm running for San Diego City Council District 2, and I'm running because City Hall has let working families down.

I am raising my daughter in the community.

She's a fourth grader.

Good morning, everyone.

My name is Richard Bailey.

I'm a candidate for San Diego City Council District 2.

And the premise of our campaign is that outcomes are shaped by public policy and management, not political affiliation and certainly not personalities or empty political rhetoric.

Uh, this is what the emperor needs.

Darth Vader shows up at a San Diego City Council meeting to mock the flock cameras.

[laughs] A man dressed as Darth Vader appeared before the San Diego City Council on Wednesday to deliver a Star Wars-themed mock, uh, uh, mocking endorsement of the city's, uh, contested flock surveillance cameras.

The New York Post reports that the costumed visitor addressed the public sa- uh, uh, the Public Safety and L- uh, Livable, uh, Neighborhoods committee as officials debated the city's growing network of camera surveillance.

Council members referred to him only as Darth Vader as he took his [laughs] turn at the microphone.

We've paid enough for this war.

It's time to end it." Joining us now from San Diego is San Diego City Council member Marni Von Wilpert.

She is the Democratic candidate for California's 48th congressional district.

Thank you very much for joining us tonight.

But there's also kinda wider politics happening on the board, I would say.

Um, I mentioned Jim Desmond, uh, one of the Republicans, is running for Congress in the 48th district against, uh, San Diego City Council Member Marty Von Wolpert.

So, you know, what he does on the board kind of takes outsize, uh, importance maybe in, in kind of how his campaign is being framed and, and messaged.

Um, and the board's Democrats have also used their positions to kind of, uh, or y- their roles to position themselves as sort of defenders against the Trump administration in San Diego County, whether it's, um, opposing ICE or calling for more, you know, immigration over- or oversight of immigrant detention at Otay Mesa.

Authorities allege the financial irregularities spanned nearly eight years, involving unauthorised ATM transactions discovered during an internal audit, according to a report from The Banner.

And finally, San Diego City Council has approved a resolution urging the state of California to hand local authorities control over the deployment of autonomous vehicles.

According to GovTech, the move comes as Waymo and Amazon roll out driverless passenger services across the city.

The resolution is said to be motivated by safety concerns and a desire to protect taxi and rideshare driver jobs.