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The Herald Scotland
29-04-2025
- Politics
- The Herald Scotland
Disney+ Suspect: Shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes review
Alison Rowat *** July 7, 2005. A glorious summer's day. World leaders had gathered at Gleneagles for the G8 Summit, hosted by Prime Minister Tony Blair. A 'ring of steel' had been thrown around the site. But the real threat was 360 miles away in London, where suicide bombers were preparing to unleash carnage on a scale not seen since the Second World War. First reports said a 'power surge' had knocked out the Tube. No one believed it. The summit was forgotten in favour of trying to get through to loved ones in London that day. Panic set in, but what was happening at Gleneagles was nothing compared to the sheer terror visited on London that day. To watch the four-part Disney+ drama Suspect: the Shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, was to be taken back to that day. Writer Jeff Pope began conventionally enough with the hours immediately after the bombs went off. We saw investigators sifting through a bombed carriage, the first meetings between the Metropolitan Police and ministers, the confusion on the ground, the sheer chaos. It was 15 minutes, an age in screen time, before we were finally and briefly introduced to the drama's subject, Jean Charles de Menezes, the Brazilian electrician wrongly shot dead by police weeks later. It was a worrying sign that the drama lacked focus, and so it proved. The first two hours were largely taken up with the stories of the bombers. But the point of this drama, or so it seemed, was to throw much-needed light on how police came to kill an innocent man, and how they responded when taken to task for it. That lack of transparency and accountability, as is now known, did not end with Mr de Menezes. Pope, the writer of Philomena and Little Boy Blue, has a real talent for combining the personal and political. Yet after four hours, I felt I knew little to nothing about Mr Menezes. He was an ordinary young guy to whom an extraordinarily dreadful thing happened. But surely there was more to say about him and his family than what was crammed into the drama's final acts. In the end we learned more about senior police officers Cressida Dick, Brian Paddick and Ian Blair (played by Emily Mortimer, Russell Tovey, Conleth Hill) than we did about Mr de Menezes (Edison Alcaide). Mortimer and co turn in reliably decent performances, with Sir Ian Blair coming across as a man with a gift for opening his mouth and putting both feet in. Dick seemed officialdom personified, refusing to say she did anything wrong. Paddick emerged as the best of the police bunch, the officer who tried to do the right thing but was frustrated at every turn. To its credit, Pope's drama does at least press home the headline truths and lies about the shooting. Mr de Menezes did not leap the ticket barrier. He was not wearing a bulky jacket. He did not move towards police. And no warning was shouted. No matter the fear and confusion on the day, those are the facts.
Yahoo
17-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
What is an autopen signature and why is Trump accusing Biden of using one?
While attending the G8 Summit in France in May 2011, a major piece of legislation reached Barack Obama's desk in the Oval Office. Invoking national security concerns, the former president authorized an aide in Washington to use an autopen to affix his signature to a bill extending three provisions of the Patriot Act. It marked the first reported time a U.S. president had a mechanical device to sign a bill into law. The White House pointed to an existing 29-page opinion commissioned by the Department of Justice claiming its use was legal. Almost 14 years later, the autopen is back making headlines after President Donald Trump accused his Democratic predecessor Joe Biden of using the mechanical device to sign pardoning documents, rather than doing so by hand. Trump claimed, without providing evidence, that Biden had no knowledge or approval of the documents. On Monday morning, Trump said that Biden's pardons are 'void' and those he granted clemency to – ranging from members of the January 6 House select committee to the the former president's own family – would be subject to investigation 'at the highest level.' But what is an autopen, and are Trump's attacks against Biden being undermined by his own alleged autosignatures? An autopen is a device designed to replicate a handwritten signature, without the direct involvement of a human. The individual's signature is digitally recorded and stored and a robotic arm holding a pen or pencil creates a near-exact replica of the signature on paper. Only a well-trained eye could spot the difference between a hand-written signature and a well-done autosignature. Presidents have signed documents using signature copying devices since Thomas Jefferson used a machine known as a polygraph in 1804, according to the National Museum of American History. He is believed to have called it 'the finest invention of the present age.' The first commercially successful autopen was not developed until 1942 by Robert M. De Shazo Jr, when it 'quickly gained popularity in the government,' according to a Facebook post by the official National Park Service for The White House and President's Park last year. The president has spent several days berating Biden for his alleged autopen use. On Friday, he told reporters at the White House that the Democrat was 'grossly incompetent' and a day later he wrote on Truth Social: 'The person who was the real President during the Biden years was the person who controlled the Autopen!' The president also trolled Biden in another Truth Social post on Sunday with a meme replacing his official portrait with an autopen mimicking his signature. Trump appeared to seize on reports from the Oversight Project, a self-described investigative arm of the right-wing think tank behind Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation. Last week, the group challenged the legitimacy of the orders signed by Biden claiming in a spelling mistake-laden X post that that an 'autopen signature' was used across almost 'every document' it could find. The exact number of documents reviewed was not immediately clear, however, the Oversight Project shared three examples of Biden's signature on official documents. Fox News claimed that it examined more than 20 executive orders signed by Biden between 2021 and 2024 'at random' and found each had the same signature. CNN, however, claims the machine's use in the Biden administration was said to be rare with the White House often going to great lengths to ensure that the former president physically signed bills. This included Biden signing a $40 billion Ukraine aid package while in South Korea in 2022 and a 2022 bill to avert a government shutdown while on vacation in St. Croix in the Caribbean. An examination of President Donald Trump's executive orders during his first and second administrations found 'the signatures were also the same,' the outlet said. Twenty-five of Trump's signatures on the Federal Register's website from across both terms also found signature matched, according to the Daily Mail's analysis. An internal memo by Trump Staff Secretary William Scharf described the Trump White House as having more stringent rules around autopen use than other administrations. 'Our practice around autopen usage is far more restrictive than most previous administrations. We do not use the autopen for documents that exercise the powers of the Presidency,' Scharf wrote according to the memo seen by the New York Post Thursday. He later added: 'We will occasionally use the autopen when a single document requires multiple presidential signatures, or when multiple copies of a single document require signing, but only after the President has personally signed off and only at his direction.' The White House didn't respond to The Independent's request for more information about Trump's alleged autopen use last week. Multiple iterations of the autopen have been used by presidents to sign a raft of official documents. The 33rd U.S. President Harry Truman has been cited as the first president to use the autopen, while Gerald Ford publicly acknowledged his use of the machine. In 1968, Lyndon Johnson allowed photographs of his autopen while he was in office, which followed a front page splash in the National Enquirer titled: 'One of the best-kept secrets in Washington: The robot that sits in for the president.' Obama again reportedly used autopen in January 2013 while signing the extension to former president George W. Bush's tax cuts while on vacation in Hawaii. Bush himself allegedly avoided using autopen over fear of legal concerns. However, he directed an autopen to be used to sign legislation for a one-week funding extension for the Federal Aviation Administration in May 2024 while he was traveling in San Francisco, according to CNN.
The Independent
17-03-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
What is an autopen signature and why is Trump accusing Biden of using one?
While attending the G8 Summit in France in May 2011, a major piece of legislation reached Barack Obama's desk in the Oval Office. Invoking national security concerns, the former president authorized an aide in Washington to use an autopen to affix his signature to a bill extending three provisions of the Patriot Act. It marked the first reported time a U.S. president had a mechanical device to sign a bill into law. The White Houe pointed to an existing 29-page opinion commissioned by the Department of Justice claiming its use was legal. Almost 14 years later, the autopen is back making headlines after President Donald Trump accused his Democratic predecessor Joe Biden of using the mechanical device to sign pardoning documents, rather than doing so by hand. Trump claimed, without providing evidence, that Biden had no knowledge or approval of the documents. On Monday morning, Trump said that Biden's pardons are 'void' and those he granted clemency to – ranging from members of the January 6 House select committee to the the former president's own family – would be subject to investigation 'at the highest level.' But what is an autopen, and are Trump's attacks against Biden being undermined by his own alleged autosignatures? What is an autopen? An autopen is a device designed to replicate a handwritten signature, without the direct involvement of a human. The individual's signature is digitally recorded and stored and a robotic arm holding a pen or pencil creates a near-exact replica of the signature on paper. Only a well-trained eye could spot the difference between a hand-written signature and a well-done autosignature. Presidents have signed documents using signature copying devices since Thomas Jefferson used a machine known as a polygraph in 1804, according to the National Museum of American History. He is believed to have called it 'the finest invention of the present age.' The first commercially successful autopen was not developed until 1942 by Robert M. De Shazo Jr, when it 'quickly gained popularity in the government,' according to a Facebook post by the official National Park Service for The White House and President's Park last year. What are the claims against Biden? The president has spent several days berating Biden for his alleged autopen use. On Friday, he told reporters at the White House that the Democrat was 'grossly incompetent' and a day later he wrote on Truth Social: 'The person who was the real President during the Biden years was the person who controlled the Autopen!' The president also trolled Biden in another Truth Social post on Sunday with a meme replacing his official portrait with an autopen mimicking his signature. Trump appeared to seize on reports from the Oversight Project, a self-described investigative arm of the right-wing think tank behind Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation. Last week, the group challenged the legitimacy of the orders signed by Biden claiming in a spelling mistake-laden X post that that an 'autopen signature' was used across almost 'every document' it could find. The exact number of documents reviewed was not immediately clear, however, the Oversight Project shared three examples of Biden's signature on official documents. Fox News claimed that it examined more than 20 executive orders signed by Biden between 2021 and 2024 'at random' and found each had the same signature. CNN, however, claims the machine's use in the Biden administration was said to be rare with the White House often going to great lengths to ensure that the former president physically signed bills. This included Biden signing a $40 billion Ukraine aid package while in South Korea in 2022 and a 2022 bill to avert a government shutdown while on vacation in St. Croix in the Caribbean. Has Trump ever used an autopen? An examination of President Donald Trump 's executive orders during his first and second administrations found 'the signatures were also the same,' the outlet said. Twenty-five of Trump's signatures on the Federal Register's website from across both terms also found signature matched, according to the Daily Mail 's analysis. An internal memo by Trump Staff Secretary William Scharf described the Trump White House as having more stringent rules around autopen use than other administrations. 'Our practice around autopen usage is far more restrictive than most previous administrations. We do not use the autopen for documents that exercise the powers of the Presidency,' Scharf wrote according to the memo seen by the New York Post Thursday. He later added: 'We will occasionally use the autopen when a single document requires multiple presidential signatures, or when multiple copies of a single document require signing, but only after the President has personally signed off and only at his direction.' The White House didn't respond to The Independent's request for more information about Trump's alleged autopen use last week. Multiple iterations of the autopen have been used by presidents to sign a raft of official documents. The 33rd U.S. President Harry Truman has been cited as the first president to use the autopen, while Gerald Ford publicly acknowledged his use of the machine. In 1968, Lyndon Johnson allowed photographs of his autopen while he was in office, which followed a front page splash in the National Enquirer titled: 'One of the best-kept secrets in Washington: The robot that sits in for the president.' Obama again reportedly used autopen in January 2013 while signing the extension to former president George W. Bush's tax cuts while on vacation in Hawaii. Bush himself allegedly avoided using autopen over fear of legal concerns. However, he directed an autopen to be used to sign legislation for a one-week funding extension for the Federal Aviation Administration in May 2024 while he was traveling in San Francisco, according to CNN.
CBC
27-02-2025
- Politics
- CBC
Calgary police and RCMP sharing more details about security plans for June G7 Summit in Kananaskis
Police officials say officers face risks that didn't exist when K-Country hosted the G8 Summit in 2002
