Obama's signature: Is it real or is it autopenned?

Obama's signature: Is it real or is it autopenned?

WASHINGTON (AP) — It's the open secret that nobody in government wants to talk about: That cherished presidential signature that's tucked away in a scrapbook or framed for all to see might never have passed under the president's hand.

For decades, presidents of both parties have let an autopen do some of the heavy lifting when it comes to scrawling their signatures. The machine was recently put to use signing a bill into law, apparently a first.

Overseas and out of reach when lawmakers passed an extension of certain provisions of the Patriot Act, President Barack Obama employed the autopen to sign it, a step the White House has been mum about ever since.

"I always heard the autopen was the second most guarded thing in the White House after the president," says Jack Shock, who had permission to wield former President Bill Clinton's autopen as his director of presidential letters and messages.

Jim Cicconi, who oversaw the use of autopens for President George H.W. Bush, recalls that the plastic signature templates for the machines — yes, there was more than one autopen — would wear out from repeated use.