Is It Authentic, Or A High Tech Forgery?

Recently I learned of a high tech gadget that can duplicate one’s signature as perfectly as if it was hand written. It seems the President was in France on one of his “Emperor’s New Clothes” world visibility jaunts, and unavailable to sign an extension of certain Patriot Act provisions passed while he was gone. So, he simply authorized the bill to be “signed” using the White House autopen.

Costing up to ten thousand dollars, the autopen uses plastic templates of the President’s various signatures, and a mechanical arm that moves a pen which accurately copies his name. This machine signs letters at about the same pace as if he were doing it himself. And it can sign around five hundred signatures per hour, rendering them as accurate as handwritten originals. Some say that the autopen is the second most guarded thing in the White House after the president himself. Duh… I wonder why?

As with all new technology, I would imagine there are negative implications in the fact that nowadays some of the documents “signed” by the president and others of note, are fake. I mean, if you’re hobby is collecting autographs, and you’re unknowingly paying for certain signatures you think to be authentic, you’re getting ripped off. The most dangerous implication is, however, that a machine like the autopen now gives our often “questionable” government another tool to dupe the American public. I’ll let you imagine what that could mean, depending, of course, upon your level of trust in the body politic.

Think of it this way. What mischief could a device like the autopen hatch if a kid had his mother’s signature template and a hate relationship with school? How about if an employee had a perfect way to forge the signature of his boss? What if a person of “weak” character had a few of their rich relative’s blank checks and a way to sign them convincingly? Sounds to me like the autopen might be the “auto” that transports persons of questionable honesty to the “pen.”