minute before midnight , after a landslip House vote of 250 - 153 , President Obama sign legislation backing a four - year extension on the controversial USA PATRIOT Act . ( Did you know that ’s anacronymfor Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools demand to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism ? Now you do . ) Yay , habeas corpus denials , warrantless searches and carte blanche wiretapping ! Four more year ! Four more years !
Because the chairman was in France , he was required to signalize it using an autopen car : that rare and rattling equipment favour by politicians , summercater headliner and celebrities , that can automatically regurgitate the act of signing one ’s autograph . ( See one in actionhere ! )
Since first being patented in the U.S. in 1804 by English discoverer John Isaac Hawkins , the autopen has scribbled its way into American history — and infamy — over and over again .
Some highlights :
1945 : Harry Truman is think to have been the first sitting president to practice the autopen with any geometrical regularity . you’re able to find example , likethis autopen - sign up thank - you note , for sale on eBay .
1961 : President Kennedy use the autopen for nearly any signature that was n’t of implication . To learn more , check out Charles Hamilton ’s 1965 rule book , The Robot That assist to Make a President , the “ most in - depth reference guide for the different proxy signature produce by the autopen machines used by President John F. Kennedy . ”
1988 : Vice President Dan Quayle isconfronted by ABC ’s Sam Donaldsonabout a letter he send to a jurist take for GOP fundraiser Stephen Goot , convict on racketeering charges in his role in unsex DUIs , to be moved to a cushier prison house . Quayle pleaded the “ autopen defense , ” saying a staff member must have signal it without his cognition . It ’s the second clip he uses that excuse .
1996 : In his 2004 playscript My Life , Bill Clinton recalls : “ In 1996 , the children of one of my father ’s sister come for the first time to our yearly family unit Christmas party at the White House and brought me a gift : the commiseration varsity letter my aunt had receive from her congressman , the capital Sam Rayburn , after my father died . It ’s just a inadequate form letter and appears to have been signed with the autopen of the day , but I hugged that letter with all the glee of a six - yr - sure-enough boy getting his first caravan set from Santa Claus . ”
2004 : Then defense force secretary Donald Rumsfeld finds himself at the center ofa White House PR nightmare , when it comes out that he ’d used an autopen to signalise his name to condolence letters air to relatives of soldier get off to Iraq and Afghanistan . At first denying it , Rumsfeld then admitted , “ While I have not individually bless each one , in the interest of ensuring expeditious touch with grieving sept member , I have direct that in the future I ratify each letter of the alphabet . ”
[ AP ]
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