What is the autopen, the robot that replies the signatures of President Trump: « Abuse with Biden, he didn’t know what he signed »

The power of a signature. Not only a tool to validate a document, but also a half -political to try to delegitimize an opponent. Precisely for this reason, the use of the autopen – a mechanical device that faithfully replies a signature – has returned to the center of the contest of President Donald Trump against his predecessorafter having already done a battle horse last March.
«It has become increasingly evident that the collaborators of the former President Biden they abused of the power of the presidential signatures through the use of an autopenne to hide the cognitive decline of biden « , It reads in an official note. «The American public was intentionally protected by distinguishing those who held the executive power, while the Biden’s signature was used on thousands of documents to implement radical political changes ».

How the autopen works and when it was invented

The use of this machine is not new for US presidencies. The same Trump has used it several times during both presidential mandates. He reassures that he had done it « only for very little important documents », as he said in March.
But the history of the Autopen has its roots in a 1937 innovation called « Robot pen ». The reproduction of the signature was based on a technology similar to that of the incision of music (and then its reproduction) on a vinyl disc. Only five years later the device entered the American administration for the first time, initially passing through the Navy. The merit is by Robert Deshazo Jr, founder of theAutomated Signature Technology And inventor of the Autopen as we know it today: a mechanical arm connected to a pen (or a pencil) that reproduces a signature. At the time the original was engraved on physical support like a metal or plastic disk. Today, however, the most common digital supports are used (such as SD cards or USB pens) to « save » the signature.

The use of the automatic signature between American presidents (and not only)

According to some reports, it was Already Harry Truman The first president to adopt this technology a few years after his marketing. And his successors also continued to use the autopen to sign correspondence and some documents. During the administration of Gerald Fordfor example, the machine has often been used to reproduce the signatures of the president and First Lady Betty Ford on the letters and postcards sent to American citizens.
However, the beginning of the new millennium must be expected before starting to talk about its use to sign federal laws. The first to ask yourself the problem was in 2005 George W. Bush who, with a cautious attitude, had asked the question of the constitutionality of signing laws with the autopen at the Department of Justice. Positive response: «We are not suggesting that the president can delegate the decision to approve and sign a bill, but only that, after making this decision, it can instruct a subordinate to affix the signature of the President on the bill ».

However, it was touched by Barack Obama inaugurate This practice in 2011, when authorized the use of the autopen While he was in France to sign the extension of the Patriot Act anti -terrorism law. The use of the mechanical device at that point was cleared in politics. Obama, in fact, used it on at least two other occasions. During the Biden presidency, however, the Autopen was mainly used for sign laws that did not provide for a public signature ceremony Or on those occasions when the president was on the road and could not physically validate the official document.
However, it cannot be said that the use of this machine is linked only to politics. It is from 2019 a controversy linked to the world of entertainment. And the protagonist on that occasion was a famous songwriter: Bob Dylan. On the occasion of the release of his book « The Phylosophy of Modern Song » A limited edition of 900 copies had been produced at the price of 600 dollars each. The peculiarity? Each book contained an autographed signature of the songwriter. A combination of unfortunate events-the advent of Pandemia from Covid-19 and a series of annoying dizziness-had forced Dylan to use the mechanical device to sign the copies of the book. «Given the contractual deadlines that looked down, I was suggested the idea of ​​using an autopen and I was assured that this kind of things becomes « always » in the world of art and literature. Using a car was a judgment error, which I want to remedy immediately, « the author had written in a long post of excuses on Facebook.