Who was the first President to use technology
to sign a bill into law from afar?
If you have been following my Presidential
technology series and noticed that I have asked some trick
questions, this question’s answer is straightforward.
The Huffington Post reports, “On
Wednesday evening President Obama signed Congress’ new
fiscal cliff bill into law while on vacation in Hawaii. Just how
did the POTUS accomplish this? With the help of the handy
President Obama has used an autopen to
sign legislation when he is away from the White House.
The autopen works by copying a
signer’s pen strokes and storing them for use when the
signer is not present.
Watch this video to see the pen in action:
This was not the first time President Obama used
the autopen (he has used it at least three times), nor is he the
first President to use such a device. Over 200 years ago, President
Thomas Jefferson was partial to using a machine called the
polygraph. Invented by John Isaac Hawkins, the machine wrote with a
second pencil whatever the first was writing. By 1809 Jefferson
wrote that “the use of the polygraph has spoiled me for
the old copying press the copies of which are hardly ever legible.
. . . I could not, now therefore, live without the
The polygraph, Jefferson’s
indispensible tool, invented by John Isaac Hawkins.
In the present day, because President Obama uses
it, the autopen is a rather powerful device. “I always
heard the autopen was the second-most guarded thing in the White
House after the president,” said Jack Shock, Bill
Clinton’s director of presidential letters and messages,
according to the Associated Press.