UNITED STATES OF THE SOUTH ATLANTIC
MINISTRY OF CULTURE, JUSTICE, AND INSTITUTIONAL SECURITY
SPECIAL SECRETARIAT FOR REPARATIVE LABOR
SUBJECT: Transcript of interview with Worker 212/VWD/P1.SP-SP by the Deutsche Welle broadcasting team (hereinafter DW), related to case 2032.0009.376.32-TRT 2nd Region/ECAD — 1st Instance, conducted on November 21, 2032, from approximately 9:37 PM to 11:09 PM, in his lodging (Liberdade III Building, N2 Ave., SHC 303–313, Lot 15, South-Central Wing)
ORIGIN: Standard Monitoring Operation
CLASSIFICATION: A-1
DISSEMINATION: AOI / General Staff Section 2
ATTACHMENTS:
Present:
Mr. HERMANN SCHMIDT — DW producer
Mr. PAUL MEYER — DW cameraman
Ms. HANNAH LINDT — DW reporter
WORKER 212/VWD/P1.SP-SP
SUPERVISOR 302/VWD/P1.SP-SP
/// NOTE: Selected for relevance
(...)
LINDT H.: Ok, are we ready?
MEYER P.: I’m finishing white balance. You can start talking so I can check the audio.
LINDT H.: Alright. First of all, how should I address you?
SUP. 302: His designation is Worker 212.
LINDT H.: No. Excuse me. We agreed that you would accompany the interview as a company representative, but all questions are directed to the interviewee. Are we clear?
SUP. 302: [unintelligible]
LINDT H.: Well, I apologize for that. Worker 212 is your designation in a legal or professional context, correct? Don’t you have a name?
WORKER 212: Not anymore. Members of the Rehabilitation Program waive their right to ownership.
LINDT H.: But how does that include your name?
WORKER 212: The law of the USSA considers a given name to be intellectual property subject to the General Law on Copyright and Corporate Ownership.
MEYER P.: Ok, all set. We’re recording.
LINDT H.: Alright. Please, tell us how we should identify you in the report.
WORKER 212: Worker 212, lathe operator assigned to Plant 1 of Volkswagen-Disney S?o Paulo.
LINDT H.: Very well. Let’s start with the basics. Explain the nature of your relationship with Volkswagen-Disney.
WORKER 212: I’m a voluntary worker in the Rehabilitation Program for those convicted in Operation Blackbeard.
LINDT H.: By voluntary, you mean you don’t receive a salary, correct?
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
WORKER 212: Yes. The principle of the Rehabilitation Program is that the labor value of my activities on the assembly line belongs entirely to Volkswagen-Disney as a form of damage reparation.
LINDT H.: What is the Rehabilitation Program about? Could you explain it in the simplest possible terms for our audience in Germany?
WORKER 212: I think that to really be clear, I’d need to explain a bit about how the United States of the South Atlantic works. From what I know, it’s quite different from an Old World democracy like Germany.
LINDT H.: Please, go ahead.
WORKER 212: Well, the USSA is a Federation of Market Territories where the Rule of Law is constituted by three branches: Economic, Administrative, and Military. The central figure of our Constitution is property, and our laws deal exclusively with how to guarantee and protect it. But here’s the big difference your audience needs to understand: for us, legally, everything is some form of property. The body is property; the name is property; families are property.
LINDT H.: Even families? Who do they belong to?
WORKER 212: They are corporations. Each relative is a shareholder of the surname.
LINDT H.: Quite exotic!
WORKER 212: Also, all forms of thought are property. That’s the key to understanding Operation Blackbeard and the Rehabilitation Program. Blackbeard was a mega-operation launched by the Administrative Police to crack down on the illegal consumption of intellectual property via the internet—that is, movies, books, music, TV series, comics, and video games downloaded for free from clandestine platforms. Millions were identified as violators of the Copyright Act, myself included. We were tried and convicted.
LINDT H.: So the Rehabilitation Program is a way of paying back with labor for what was illegally consumed, is that it?
WORKER 212: That’s basically it, but there’s a specific detail to our conviction, which is the basis of the case I’m bringing forward.
LINDT H.: Yes, that’s what we came to talk to you about, but I confess I don’t see the connection.
WORKER 212: Well, we’ll get there. Our conviction is not just about what we consumed, but what we came to produce based on what we consumed—in terms of thought—which is also property, and which the court ruled also belongs to the companies.
LINDT H.: I don’t understand.
WORKER 212: See, our personalities—everything we are subjectively—what is it but the sum of all the information we consume? And in our case, consumed illegally. So the court ruled that mental activity after our crimes also belongs to the companies and, therefore, could be used by them in their operations.
LINDT H.: But that’s absurd!
WORKER 212: Not at all. It’s entirely in accordance with our law, which I fully support! I cannot stress that enough to all who are listening!
LINDT H.: Sir, I don’t get it. Look, here’s a copy of the BBC report that prompted this interview: ‘South Atlantic Worker Wants to Be Legally Recognized as the Buddha’. We came to do a story on something unusual, a curious case.
WORKER 212: And isn’t it curious? Six months ago, right here in my lodging, I attained enlightenment. And I must say, in a way, it happened by accident; I was simply striving each day to think of Nothing. Woke up at five a.m.: Nothing. Eighteen hours standing in the factory: Nothing. Fifteen minutes for lunch and dinner: Nothing. Crushed on my feet in overcrowded transport: Nothing. Opening the door to this one-room lodging: Nothing. Eventually, I succeeded. [laughs] But now, see, although there’s no dispute over the sentence, there is effectively no longer a convict to serve it: I don’t exist!
