“Nietzsche said the newspaper had replaced the prayer in the life of the modern bourgeois, meaning that the busy, the cheap, the ephemeral, had usurped all that remained of the eternal in his daily life.”
autopen (自動筆/自動打字機 簡史與歷任美國總統使用) 到名作家 Margaret Atwood"發明的 LongPen
Mr. Trump has hung a photo of an autopen in a space where Mr. Biden’s portrait would otherwise be, and disparages his predecessor’s physicality often.
Image
Mr. Trump hung a photo of an autopen in place of President Joseph R. Biden Jr. on the “Presidential Walk of Fame” he had installed on the Colonnade.Credit...Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times
The first signature duplicating machines were developed by British American inventor John Isaac Hawkins, who received a United States patent for his device in 1803, called a polygraph (an abstracted version of the pantograph) in which the user may write with one pen and have their writing simultaneously reproduced by an attached second pen. Thomas Jefferson used the device extensively during his presidency.[1] This device bears little resemblance to today's autopens in design or operation.[5]
The autopen called the Robot Pen was developed in the 1930s, and became commercially available in 1937 to record a signer's signature, used as a storage unit device, similar in principle to how vinyl records store information. A small segment of the record could be removed and stored elsewhere to prevent misuse. The machine would then be able to mass-produce a template signature when needed.[6]
While the Robot Pen was commercially available, the first commercially successful autopen was developed by Robert M. De Shazo Jr., in 1942.[7] De Shazo developed the technology that became the modern autopen in reference to a Request For Quote (RFQ) from the Navy, and in 1942, received an order for the machine from the United States Secretary of the Navy.[2] This was the beginning of a significant market in government for the autopen, as the machines soon ended up in the offices of members of Congress, the Senate and the Executive branches. At one point, De Shazo estimated there were more than 500 autopens in use in Washington, D.C.[8]
Use
Individuals who use autopens often do not disclose this publicly. Signatures generated by machines are valued less than those created manually, and perceived by their recipients as somewhat inauthentic.[9] In 2004, Donald Rumsfeld, then the U.S. Secretary of Defense, incurred criticism after it was discovered that his office used an autopen to sign letters of condolence to families of American soldiers who were killed in war.[10]
Outside of politics, it was reported in November 2022 that some copies of The Philosophy of Modern Song, a book by singer-songwriter Bob Dylan that had been published earlier that month, had been signed with an autopen, resulting in criticism. Autographed editions had been marketed as "hand-signed" and priced at US$600 each. Both Dylan and the book's publisher, Simon & Schuster, issued apologies; refunds were also offered to customers who had bought autopen-signed editions.[11] In addition, Dylan also said that some prints of his artwork sold after 2019 had been signed with an autopen, which he further apologized for and attributed his use of the machine to vertigo and the COVID-19 pandemic, the latter of which prevented him from meeting with staff to facilitate signing the works in question.[12]
U.S. presidents
Portrait of U.S. President Richard Nixon with autopen signature
A precursor to the autopen was an instrument called the polygraph (which is not related to the modern device of the same name). While a person using the polygraph wrote an original document on one side of the machine, the device would mechanically facsimile a copy on the opposite side. When President Thomas Jefferson discovered the device, he purchased two: one for the White House, and one for his home at Monticello. Although the device could only make copies at the same time that a user was creating an original, a fully automated version was invented in the 1930s. According to National Journal, some sources say that Harry S. Truman was the first U.S. president to use an autopen, though he limited his use of it to signing checks and answering mail. The first president to sign legislation with it was Barack Obama.[13] Others credit Gerald Ford as the first president to openly acknowledge his use of the autopen.[14]
While visiting France, Barack Obama authorized the use of an autopen to create his signature, signing into law an extension of three provisions of the Patriot Act.[15] On January 3, 2013, he signed the extension to the Bush tax cuts, using the autopen while vacationing in Hawaii.[16] In order to sign it by the required deadline, his other alternative would have been to have had the bill flown to him overnight.[17] Republican leaders questioned whether this use of the autopen met the constitutional requirement for signing a bill into law,[18] but the validity of presidential use of an autopen had not been actually tested in court.[19] In 2005, George W. Bush asked for and received a favorable opinion from the Department of Justice regarding the constitutionality of using the autopen, but did not use it.[20][21][22]
In May 2024, Joe Biden directed an autopen be used to sign legislation providing a one-week funding extension for the Federal Aviation Administration. Biden was traveling in San Francisco at the time, and wished to avoid any lapse in FAA operations, while a five-year funding bill was being voted on by Congress.[23]
In March 2025, President Trump, while admitting that he sometimes uses an autopen,[24] said that pardons for members of the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack issued during Biden's presidency are void due to them allegedly being signed by autopen. However, earlier in 2024, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that pardons do not have to be made in writing in Rosemond v. Hudgins.[25][26] The following May, the House Oversight Committee, led by Republican Representative James Comer, announced an investigation into Biden's health and mental fitness during his presidency, focusing specifically on Biden's use of an autopen.[27][28] In September 2025, Trump unveiled a sequence of portraits of serving and past presidents of the United States, in which Biden's portrait was replaced by a photograph of an autopen signing his name[29]. In October 2025, the Republican-led House Oversight Committee claimed that Biden's autopen pardons were invalid because of autopen use, and called for the Department of Justice to open a new investigation into the Biden administration.[30]
Similar devices
Further developing the class of devices known as autopens, Canadian author Margaret Atwood invented a device called the LongPen, which allows audio and video conversation between the fan and author while a book is being signed remotely.[citation needed]
歷史
國際自動筆公司（International Autopen Company）的50型自筆
第一台簽名複製機由英裔美國發明家約翰·艾薩克·霍金斯（John Isaac Hawkins）發明，他於1803年獲得了美國專利。他的裝置稱為多形筆（polygraph，一種簡化的縮放器），使用者可以用一支筆書寫，同時另一支筆會同步複製其筆跡。托馬斯·傑斐遜總統在任期內廣泛使用過該裝置。 [1] 該裝置在設計和操作上與今天的自動筆幾乎沒有相似之處。 [5]
The LongPen is a remote type of autopen. This signing device was invented by writer Margaret Atwood in 2004 and debuted in 2006.[1] It allows a person to write remotely in ink anywhere connected to the Internet, via a touchscreen device operating a robotic hand.[2] It can also support an audio and video conversation between the endpoints, such as a fan and author, while a book is being signed.
The system was used by Conrad Black, who was under arrest, to "attend" a book signing event without leaving his home.[2]
