autopen as a way of responding to mail and signing checks. Others credit Gerald Ford as the first president to openly acknowledge his use of the autopen, but Lyndon Johnson allowed photographs of his autopen to be taken while he was in office, and in 1968 the National Enquirer ran them along with the front-page headline "The Robot That Sits In For The President." While visiting France, Barack Obama authorized the use of an autopen to create his signature which signed into law an extension of three provisions of the Patriot Act. On January 3, 2013, he signed the extension to the Bush tax cuts, using the autopen while vacationing in Hawaii. In order to sign it by the required deadline, his other alternative would have been to have had the bill flown to him overnight. Republican leaders questioned whether this use of the autopen met the constitutional requirement for signing a bill into law, but the validity of presidential use of an autopen had not been actually tested in court. 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 himself. Similar devices Further developing the class of devices known as autopens, Canadian author Margaret Atwood created a device called the LongPen, which allows audio and video conversation between the fan and author while a book is being signed remotely. See also Plotter John Hancock Rubber stamp (politics) Seal (East Asia) Telautograph References External links A site with information on autopen signatures collectSPACE: Identifying Astronaut Autopens Machines Identity documents 19th-century inventions English inventions