Back a month or so ago, when the Patriot Act provisions were about to expire and Obama was overseas for a G-8 summit, Congress managed to pass a bill extending some of the provisions with fifteen minutes left on the clock before they expired. Since there was no way to get a copy of the bill to Obama in time*, he instead authorized some other fellow to use his Autosigner, a gadget that holds a pen and physically replicates his signature. It's typically used for mass mailings and Christmas cards and such.
A group of GOP congressmen are questioning the validity of the law as signed, saying that the Constitution clearly intends for the president himself to physically sign the document. Obama pointed to a memo from the Office of Legal Counsel to President Bush which concluded that autosigning legislation was kopasetic. Said GOP congressmen pointed out dissenting opinions. They want Obama to re-sign the document (by hand, natch) and solemnly swear to never use the Autosigner for such purposes ever again.
The supposed concern is that, by setting a precedence, we could one day be in a situation where the president is largely incapacitated but gives an aide permission to autosign something... or DID he??? It's a pretty edge scenario but, hey, who knows. I've seen "Independence Day" and "The Day After Tomorrow" so I know sometimes the president is in some unusual circumstances. I don't have any strong feelings on it, if Obama decided tomorrow to sign it again, good for him. If not... eh. But I guess this will have to be answered sooner or later so what say you?
tl;dr: Steampunk mechano-gadgets to sign laws for the president... yay or nay?
*This is the story as told; whatever clever ideas you have now aren't really relevant.
Edited, Jun 17th 2011 1:15pm by Jophiel