SEATTLE – A King County letter that ended up in the mailboxes of thousands of pet owners is raising concerns over privacy.
The letter told pet owners to license their pets or face a $250 fine.
“It feels weird to me, it feels like they’re kind of snooping around in a place where they shouldn’t be,” said dog owner Chris Lee.
Turns out for the last four years, King County has been using data companies to target specific taxpayers, or in this case pet owners. That means every time customers swipe those rewards cards, they’re gathering data.
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They say that Louis XIV had the inscription Ultima Ratio Regum cast into all the cannon of the French Army. It means “The Ultimate Argument of Kings,” and that always struck me as one of the most honest and up-front things any ruler or would-be ruler ever said. “We can dress it up prettier than this, but when it comes down to the unvarnished truth this is what it’s about: You’ll do as I say or I’ll send my goons to kill you.”
I thought about that for a long time. If there’s an ultimate argument, it seems only logical that there must be an ultimate answer. For years I thought the ultimate answer must be the bullets in my rifle, but it never seemed quite right. I’ve got bullets – he’s got frigging Cannon Balls. I mean, if there were three hundred million rifles throwing bullets at him, then maybe. But we all know that’s not going to happen. So if there’s an ultimate answer to his ultimate argument, it sure as hell ain’t bullets.
It finally came to me – and that’s when I abandoned the city and most of my stuff, and gave all that was behind me a good stiff Randian Shrug.
The ultimate answer to kings is not a bullet, but a belly laugh.
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Previous OPSEC Violations
” . . . the county said they pay the company who pays stores such as Safeway and QFC for access to customer data contained in every one of those reward card swipes.”
“We didn’t do anything wrong, we just bought data readily available on the open market.”
Our enslavement continues apace.
I foresee an opportunity for “substitute shoppers” to use their rewards cards buying pet products for privacy-loving pet owners.
That’s why when ‘loyalty cards’ first came out I refused to get one and still don’t have one. They got to make up that ‘discount’ they ‘gave’ you some where.
There are a thousand ways to game that system, allowing you to retain your privacy and to simultaneously feed the bastards garbage “information”.
I put phony information (everything – I’m a barely functional young child according to my birth date/age) on my applications because I assumed that the data were being sold or delivered to one or more organizations. I don’t get anything they mail but I do get the in-store discounts. If I had a dog I’d put the card in the dog’s name. Wonder if when pets are chipped the information is being sold or given to a third party. Our enslavement does indeed continue, faster and faster, as more ways are developed to con us into giving up personal information. We have no obligation to respond truthfully to any requests.
This is rather disturbing and is the main reason I don’t use loyalty cards and take precautions to not be tracked. If I was ever subjected to this sort of harassment resulting from a company selling my info to a government agency, I would be shopping in another store.
The loyalty cards are fun and easy to monkeywrench. I was in a Safeway with a friend – this was eight or ten years ago – we both filled out apps with absurdly incorrect info, got our cards, exchanged the cards, and went shopping. I’ve still got mine, don’t know what happened to the other one.
When they tell me I need a phone number to get a card, I always use XXX-555-1212. The young ones never get it.