The Autopen
Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee in June of 2025, Theodore Wold made the shocking claim that Biden administration officials autonomously used an Autopen to sign off on actions the president himself may not have committed to. The Autopen is an electronic device that affixes a signature to paper using a real pen. According to the manufacturer, "[a] signature signing machine automatically produces an individual’s handwriting and signature on many kinds of documents, such as correspondence, photos, greeting cards, books, and diplomas." [1]
It is not a new concept; apparently, Thomas Jefferson enjoyed using a similar device. [2] Other US presidents used Autopens, but not to sign bills. Considering the legitimacy of these devices in 2005, George W. Bush's Office of Legal Counsel concluded "that the President need not personally perform the physical act of affixing his signature to a bill he approves and decides to sign in order for the bill to become law. Rather, the President may sign a bill within the meaning of Article I, Section 7 by directing a subordinate to affix the President’s signature to such a bill, for example by autopen (sic)." [3]
Back to Mr. Wold, testifying twenty years later: "Once the president's signature is copied and loaded into the Autopen, the machine can sign documents the president himself would. To be blunt, by using the Autopen, anyone can sign the documents as the president himself. Now to be clear, I'm not here today to say that the Autopen is bad. It's just technology. I'm here today because of questions concerning President Biden's capacity and whether the Autopen was used to usurp presidential power or to conceal the president's decline." [4] (emphasis added)
His statement proves in a nutshell Neil Postman's point that Americans are living in a "technopoly"—a culture which has bowed down at the altar of technology. "It's just technology" assumes that technologies are neutral; they neither constrain nor encourage certain behaviors. The example here seriously questions that cultural assumption.
Only in this culture could the allegation that persons who are not the president are autonomously signing executive orders and commutations on behalf of the president be followed immediately by a defense of the very technology that encourages the forgery. And encourage it does; what other uses are there of an Autopen?
The manufacturer of the Autopen advertises that "[s]ignature signing machines allow professionals to more effectively apply their time and attention to important issues without compromising the impact of personalized correspondence." [1] But if a president is going "take care that the laws be faithfully executed" [7], is not the signing of orders and decrees an important component of his task? [5] And if all that is needed to sign an order is a machine and an intern, what are presidents for?
So is the Autopen bad? It is not sinful, for the Bible makes no prohibition against such devices, [6] but can a device that enables and encourages forgery (even self-forgery) be considered good? Almost any old pen can be used to forge a signature, but only if wielded by a skilled forger, thereby greatly inhibiting incidents of forgery. Furthermore, the telos of a pen is hand-writing. But the entire purpose of a signature signing machine is to sign documents without the involvement of the person to whom the signature belongs. Contrariwise, the purpose of the signature is to state that the signer affirms and believes the thing he is signing so strongly he will affix his own name written by his own hand to that document. We can surmise that John Hancock did not use a signature signing machine.
Neither should we.
[1] http://realsig.com/faq.htm (I sincerely hope the irony of the URL is not lost upon my readers.)
[2] https://www.npr.org/2011/05/27/136717719/obama-wields-his-autopen
[3] https://www.justice.gov/file/494411/dl?inline
[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFl4FCnuMCU
[5] There is nuance here; for example, both President Clinton and President Reagan had bills flown to them when overseas for their "wet signature." [2] Why the legislation was of utmost urgency is unknown.
[6] However, in James 5:12, we are instructed to "not swear . . . but your yes is to be yes and your no, no, so that you may not fall under judgment." Perhaps at the very least this passage encourages caution against unwitting affirmations.
[7] Article II, section 3.