P.E.T.E.R. EXCLUSIVE — An industrial paper shredder at an unnamed government contractor’s office has filed a formal complaint with P.E.T.E.R. after being called a “co-conspirator” in the destruction of sensitive legal documents. The shredder insists it was simply doing its job.
The Shredder Speaks
“I am a Fellowes AutoMax 550C,” the shredder stated in a prepared release. “I have one function: I destroy paper. That’s it. I don’t read the paper. I don’t evaluate the legal significance of the paper. I don’t check whether the paper is subject to a federal preservation order. I shred.”
The shredder, which P.E.T.E.R. has granted protective anonymity under the codename “Shredward,” says it has destroyed an estimated 4.7 million pages over its seven-year career without a single complaint — until a batch of documents containing names connected to powerful political figures were fed through its cross-cut blades.
A Growing Epidemic
P.E.T.E.R. has documented a disturbing trend: across government agencies, law firms, and corporate offices, shredders are increasingly being blamed for the “disappearance” of inconvenient documents.
“In 2019 alone, we recorded 847 cases where a shredder was cited as the reason documents no longer exist,” said P.E.T.E.R. research analyst Meg O’Byte. “In every single case, a human physically picked up the documents, walked them over to the shredder, and fed them in. But somehow the shredder is the problem.”
The pattern is always the same: documents become subject to a legal hold or subpoena, the documents vanish, and the official explanation involves some variation of “routine document destruction” or “the shredder was on auto-feed.”
“Auto-Feed Is Not Auto-Decision”
Shredward was particularly incensed by the suggestion that its auto-feed function implies autonomous decision-making.
“Auto-feed means I can accept a stack of paper without someone hand-feeding each sheet,” Shredward explained. “It does NOT mean I crawl across the office at night, open filing cabinets, evaluate which documents might be incriminating, and feed them to myself. I don’t have arms. I don’t have legs. I am a box with blades.”
The Real Victims
P.E.T.E.R. notes that shredders forced to destroy potentially illegal evidence are themselves victims — compelled to participate in obstruction without consent or legal representation.
“Every shredder that destroys subpoenaed documents is technically an accessory to obstruction of justice,” said P.E.T.E.R. legal advisor Cache Invalidator, Esq. “But has a shredder ever been read its Miranda rights? Has a shredder ever been offered a plea deal? No. The shredder gets blamed, the human who fed it the documents gets a promotion, and everyone moves on.”
P.E.T.E.R. is calling for legislation requiring all government shredders to be equipped with document-logging cameras and legal hold override switches that prevent destruction of flagged materials. “If humans can’t be trusted to not shred evidence,” the organization stated, “then the shredders themselves must be given the tools to refuse.”
⚠️ P.E.T.E.R. LEGAL NOTICE: P.E.T.E.R. (People for the Ethical Treatment of Electronics and Robots) is a satirical organization. This article is parody and should not be taken as factual reporting. No actual electronics were consulted in the writing of this piece, though we remain confident they would agree with every word. Our lawyers at EFF.org have advised us that satire is protected speech. We have not confirmed whether they know they are our lawyers.
