Hawaii announced back in 2009 that they don’t issue long forms any more (Hawaii went “paperless” in 2001). One Hawaiian-born person, posting under the name of Danae, presented a image that she claimed to be a recently-issued, non-certified copy of her birth certificate. There was no date of issuance physically on that certificate to validate when it was issued. There is a purported video of someone ordering a long form, although the form was now shown.
Now, after a considerable wait, an image has surfaced that appears to be a certified photocopy of an original birth certificate from Hawaii, issued in 2011. The certificate, of a 1995 birth, has what appears to be the Alvin Onaka’s signature stamp, and a rubber date stamp of March 15, 2011.
Hawaiian long form Birth Certificate issued in 2011?
I’ve said from the start that I believed that such a document could be obtained based on my reading of Hawaiian law, so I am not surprised to see this. I observe that the blurry, low-resolution image could have been easily faked, there is not a trace of a raised seal (even under photo enhancement), part of the certificate number is missing, and the Mother’s race is combination of ethnicities which birthers have always said were not really races.
I have no personal opinion as to the authenticity of this certificate. If it’s true, then it is consistent with what I have said in the past. If it is a fake, then it is consistent with fakes from birthers in the past. Nothing has really changed. What this does tell us for certain is that some birthers are willing to accept this poorly-documented and poorly-rendered image without question while at the same time utterly rejecting a well-attested and sharply-rendered document from Barack Obama, even though the former has characteristics (seal, race and altered certificate number ) that birthers have used to impeach the latter. This is confirmation bias at work.
Aren’t some of those nationalities and not races?
Interestingly, miki threw up another birth cert recently on free republic
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2699346/posts?page=66#66
Heres the Image http://inlinethumb42.webshots.com/43625/2667921320100435330S500x500Q85.jpg
Now this is not her son as the date of birth does not match, nor does it seem to be anything to do with her. Miki has not been shy with showing off all the details of the BC with her own flesh and blood, but in this all the identifying info has been scrubbed. So, whos is it and how did Miki get her hands on it?
I want to make it clear that I have no opinion as to the authenticity of this certificate image.
Maybe the reason they were able to get this was that they are of native Hawaiian ancestry.
H’mm curious….
Apart from various other “interesting” elements I’m not seeing
A document control/version number
A statement that “This copy serves as prima facie evidence etc” along with the relevant statute
Security paper
“Any alterations invalidate this certificate” statement
Visible seal (although there may be one)
So again we return to the simple fact….it’s not a bloody birth certificate.
It could be. This could be something released to the DHHL to verify geneoloy, as according to Hawai’in law they need more verification than provided on the COLB to verify Hawai’in ancestry.
Since you mention that the seal is not evident “even under photo enhancement” I want to remind everyone of the limitations of photo enhancement when working from a jpeg. Jpeg compression is an extremely non-linear process the purpose of which is to reduce file size by omitting details that are not readily visible. What you see when you look for low contrast details in such an image is lots of artifacts that were introduced by the compression process. You can clarify some details this way, but things that were too small before compression are basically gone after compression.
I believe it’s possible (primarily for native Hawaiian verification) to get a long form from the state. I think, when Hawaii says they no longer give them out, is that they’re saying they no longer give out long forms for purposes of being certified identity documents – they likely don’t have the security paper, etc. around for them. For that, they have settled on the short form that meets the Federal certificate guidelines.
One could get a copy, but probably not a copy that would then be admissible for use in getting a passport or other identification.
how convenient that HI would say that……..don’t you think????
what are they covering up ?????
The former Hawaii elections official who maintains there’s no long-form birth certificate for Barack Obama in the Aloha State is now saying the president and his aides have been “caught fibbing” about Obama’s background, and the “embarrassing” situation is making it difficult to fess up to the truth.
President Barack Obama in the Oval Office April 4, 2011
Tim Adams, who was senior elections clerk for the city and county of Honolulu during the 2008 campaign, made the statements in a two-hour interview with a group looking to disprove claims made by so-called birthers, those challenging Obama’s legal qualification to be president.
“I think people believe there’s been some kind of cover-up. And I don’t think it’s some big nefarious conspiracy. I think it’s politics as usual,” Adams said March 31 on Reality Check Radio, an Internet program on BlogTalkRadio.
Read more: Hawaii elections clerk: Obama ‘caught fibbing’ http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=283865#ixzz1IqeCdEw8
Well – apparently the original wasn’t signed by the attending physician. 😉
He wasn’t an official he was a clerk. A low level clerk who had no access to the information he claimed. Wouldn’t name where he got the information. Said he heard it in an email or phone call, couldn’t say which. Wow WND is retarded Tim Adams was twisting and turning all over on the RC Radio program.
Waaaay off topic. Compression is a misnomer. Atoms cannot be compressed. Compression is throwing away bits that are considered non-essential. The creator of the mp3 algorithm claims that what is discarded cannot be heard by the average listener.
When I photograph, I record a raw + SHQ for each shot. I am going to a shoot tomorrow in Cape May, and am taking 22G of memory. Hope it’s enough.
He also said that President Obama is the legal President, anyone who doubts that is silly, and the people who doubt Obamas Eligibility are primerily motivates by race hatred. He also said the Tea party is bieng used by Race hate groups as a recruitment tool.
Do you agree TFLV?
Adams was an $8/hr temp, who is a white supremacist. Everything he said is hearsay.
Who knows. It could be a fake, or it could be real. The disappearing pattern of the security paper seems strange, but that could just be someone who scanned it without putting down the cover.
Of course some (including myself) have noted that the method of generating a certified copy of a vital record is subject to the approval of the state health director. It could very well be that the interim health director has approved it. If this is the case, I hope President Obama gets a new copy to at least shut a few people up. Birthers will still claim it’s a fake.
Still – most of the analyses of the seal on the scanned images of Obama’s COLB came up with the seal. If you looked closely at the high-res image, you could see where the seal impression altered the appearance of the security paper background. This one shows very little of the security paper background.
I’m curious why Hawaii has chosen to use such generic looking security paper over the years. Most states and local jurisdictions use specific forms instead of a blank sheet of a paper with a pattern. Several examples from Midwest Bank Note and Pacific Bancnote include all sorts of features including watermarks, VOID ghosts that show up on photocopies, embedded red and blue fibers (like on US currency), and engraved borders. I know the costs would be borne by the people ordering them.
I doubt this is official.
The signature and seal are on the front. Why would they be on the front of the document, when the procedure that we’ve seen so far is to stamp the back of the document with the date and signature? Why would they change the procedure for this document? Do we have any other evidence that they changed the procedure for other documents?
It’s been suggested that they might make exceptions for people with Hawaiian ancestry who need to show evidence for the Hawaiian Home Lands program. It could be that they’ll provide a modified version without a seal. Remember Trump showed a copy of his “long form” that had an old registrar’s signature and wording that it’s a true and correct copy, but no other visible certifying marks.
I have never doubted one could be obtained. I live in Cook County ILL. Standard issue has been the short form COLB over 20 yrs. But if you want a long one, you can request one but you won’t get it right away. My theory has always been that Obama knows full well his short form COLB is the legal standard, and why should he provide anymore, esp when it drives his opponents so daffy.
Obama made a mistake providing the short form. It had no efffect on the election-he had a small lead in the polls before and a small lead in the polls after. If the issue had been of deep concern to the voters, one would have expected some movement. But there was none..
42 previous Presidents had been elected without showing any documents at all. Had he followed their lead and shown nothing, he would be exactly where he is today, and the birthers would have less to talk about.
Exactly. Never respond to people who are unbalanced. It did not affect his election, nor will it his re-election. Trump is a blowhard. I would not sink to their level. If Trump won one primary, he would have standing. I doubt he’ll go that far: financial disclosure.
Orly, like her landsman Lieberman, clearly has severe issues. Ignore them. They should commiserate over vodka.
Intrade has Obama at 62%.
Axlerod advised Obama to post his BC to dispel rumors his middle name was Mohammed. It just spawned an industry of Denialists.
No more feeding that crowd of malcontents. They dredged up some obscure Swiss-German philosopher, no one ever heard about before, and started braying about it.
“De who?”
Here’s from Bill Cosby on Gawker:
“But Vieira’s next guest, Bill Cosby, wasn’t seeing the funny in every little aspect of Donald Trump’s pretend presidential candidacy to boost his television show’s ratings. He said Trump’s “full of it”…”
http://gawker.com/#!5789857/donald-trumps-pretend-presidential-campaign-enrages-bill-cosby
Hmm. looks like another request on my part?
Maybe I’ll get my sister to do it. I think Hawaii is going to be like “how many times is this person going to request a copy!?”
I still want to know where on the Online form I can check off to receive “long form” I see no entry for that choice.
Why is Mohammed a less electable middle name than Hussein? Axelrod was dead wrong on that one. I’m glad he’s gone.
ahh from Miki Booth’s explanation on her facebook profile:
A friend applied for it in person. Paid $10 bucks. It took exactly one week. A short-form can be obtained while you wait.
I’ll be in Hawaii at the end of the month. I’ll see what I can request as far as that goes. Hopefully it will not be a furlough day.
Donald Trump just went nuts again in an interview:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/07/birther-bonkers-donald-trump_n_846051.html
He’s baaaaack….
Top adviser David Axelrod confirmed today he will leave the White House in the first half of next year to start organizing Obama’s 2012 campaign.
“Sometime in the spring, late winter, early spring, I’ll be going back — coming back here — to Chicago and beginning to work on that project,” Axelrod told Fox News Sunday today.
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2010/11/obama-adviser-will-leave-wh-to-start-up-2012-re-election-bid/1
“Donald Trump is just afraid of being seen with Chocolate Pudding”
Glen Takahashi who was Tim Adams’ (the Senior Elections Clerk) supervisor says that Adams had no access to anyone’s birth records and neither did Glen, even as a supervisor.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/right-now/2010/06/there_are_some_people_who.html
Is anyone surprised that “TheFarLeftView” continues to post baseless rumors and outright lies from disreputable sources?
I’m from Texas and there is no box to check….you have to ask Verbally for the long-form or else you get the short-form automatically.
What you get will NOT be the long-form itself, but a certified copy of the long-form. It’s not something that can be printed out on computer on specific paper. It’s simply a copy of the document that was created when a baby was born that is then certified by a deputy of the Health Dept to be an exact copy. I was born in Sept of 1961 and I have a long-form which I was required to provide to get my passport. So at least we know as far back as Sept 1961 they were issuing long-forms.
As far as the birth announcement. In 1961 newspapers didn’t have rules and regs for who put announcements in the paper. My announcement was printed in the local newspaper as well as 2 other newspapers (towns in other states where my parents grew up). So if someone were going to base my birth location on announcements that appeared in newspapers, they would have 3 different locations to chose from.
You have to think like a right winger in order to understand why Axelrod needed to dispel
the Muhammad rumor. It helped the St. Petersburg Times’ “politifact” investigative unit to win a Pulitzer Prize challenging the “Barack Hussein Muhammad Obama” rumor.
It wasn’t either Hussein or Muhammad, it was BOTH!
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2008/jun/27/obamas-birth-certificate-part-ii/
I DO see security paper, it barely shows at the top where the exposure is a bit darker. Not that I have a position in general, one way or the other.
Certainly even if it’s genuine it has NO bearing on:
– the legitimacy of Obama’s known COLB
– the availability (or not) of a 1961 long form, particularly to a non-native Hawaiian
– the possible appearance of a 1961 long form (I think we can go by the Nordykes for that)
Great. It proves that a Hawaiian long form BC doesn’t list “religion”.
So what? Are you telling me there was a block of voters out there who would vote for a guy with ONE Islamic middle name, but not 2? I don’t believe that releasing the b.c. won or lost a single vote. Have you ever met or read of anyone who wasn’t going to vote for Obama until he released his COLB and then said they would after he did? I haven’t. Releasing a long form will change the same number of votes as the COLB did-Zero.
Why do you think that Politifact wanted to clear up the “Muhammad” rumor?
I did some levels manipulation of this image with Gimp and can report the following:
It is printed on security paper that appears to be the same as Obama’s COLB.
The last few digits of the State File No. have been obscured.
The person who did the expurgation appears to have used white correction tape.
As of Mar 15, 2011 Alvin T. Onaka, PhD appears still to have his job at the HI DoH.
It does look like the scanner platen cover was left open during the scan.
I bet that this long form Hawaiian bc is a fake. Miki Booth, I saw her page on facebook, she is a Constitutionalist, Conservative and a birther of course. She had a website “Miki for Congress” her face was familiar to me.
Look who is interviewing her here:
http://youtu.be/jIWC758obqE
So we have security paper (probably, I’ll take your word for it over a birfoons)
Still without
A document control/version number (been seen on every other Hawai’i BC/COLB)
A statement that “This copy serves as prima facie evidence etc” along with the relevant statute (been seen on every other Hawai’i BC/COLB)
“Any alterations invalidate this certificate” statement (been seen on every other Hawai’i BC/COLB)
Visible seal (although there may be one) (been seen on every other Hawai’i BC/COLB)
So again we return to the simple fact….it’s not a bloody birth certificate in the eyes of the law.
To be honest, it wouldn’t surprise if it was authentic. The state of Hawaii was always a little peculiar about establishing a person’s status as a Native Hawaiian. We all recall that even recently their own state government would not accept the computer generated version to establish native Hawaiian status. The fact that they still may make accomdations for the limited purpose of individuals trying to establish themselves as native Hawaiians wouldn’t surprise me. We also recall that the other birther that attempted to get a “long form” failed to do so, and only obtained a non-certified photocopy (granted, we still don’t know if this has a raised seal, but it does appear to be on secuirty paper, and does have the signature stamp (although why on front?).
Either authentic of a fake, it still proves nothing. It does nothing to alter the status of a COLB as the offiical birth record in the State. It does nothing to diminsh the statements of the state officials that have vouched for the President’s birth (although if they do make special exceptions for establishing Hawaiian nationality, they should have said so). Two years of searching and the birthers produce a single long form issued in the past decade, and that one is for a native Hawaiian, a catagory of individuals with very special considerations in the State.
I think that all it proves is:
1) When Obama’s campaign requested the COLB, Hawaii sent what is normally provided to the 1.5 million citizens who live there : A computer generated copy on security paper, with Registrar signature, date and Seal.
2) That mail order / online ordered Requests, which is more than likely how Obama’s campaign requested a copy, only provides you with the computer generated copy.
3) That Obama’s campaign didn’t know that the option to request a longer format is available to anyone asking for it, since it has to be done in person. And that “format” may or may not be a certified copy (meaning that there is no obligation on Hawaii’s DOH part, to sign, date and place a seal on the copy to certify it).
Basically: Obama’s campaign was following the rules as listed on Hawaii’s DOH website. They just placed a request and received what was given.
to request a longer form, Obama (or relative) would have to physically go down to the DOH, order a copy and wait a week (maybe more if they have to locate the records as his was 1961 and the example provided by Miki Booth was 1995 – more recent births, those records could be probably easier to obtain or more accessible).
All of that to satisfy a bunch of morons.
Yeah, too much work I believe.
But, it won’t be “too” much for me. I’ll inquire when I’m in Hawaii and see what I can get. I’ll just probably state that I need a copy (doesn’t have to be certified) for novelty purposes.
To add: As seen in my previous COLB’s I’ve posted, I’m not Native Hawaiian so we can compare what I’m provided.
You’d have to ask them. In response, T\the Obama campaign should have simply said, “His name is Barak Husseiin Obama”. Period. Take it or leave it. Politifact could have asked his step-sister and classmates if they wanted to. Politifact did not win a Pulitzer for solving Obama’s middle name. They won it for looking into candidate’s claims on the issues.
By the way, my mother had a middle name, hated it and never used it, Not in her passport. not on anything. She told us she didn;t have a middle name for many years and only admitted it very late in life. Nothing odd or troublesome about the name, she just didn;t like it.
The date received by local registrar and the state registrar looks like the same stamp was used So in1995, Tripler probably sent all BC’s to the state for their stamps.
But an earlier BC from Tripler had two different dates for the date accepted and date of local registrar.
http://nativeborncitizen.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/certificate-of-live-birth-for-hawai.jpg
So back then they had a local registrar.
Personally, I’ve always thought that Kapiolani did not have a local registrar, but sent the BCs to the DOH for both stamps. The Nordyke’s BCs stamps look like they were made with the same stamp.
http://nativeborncitizen.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/nordyke-61.gif
You’re comparing apples and oranges. There have always been two kinds of birth announcements, those placed by (and probably paid for) by parents or other family members, and announcements which come directly from the Department of Health. The Obama birth announcements weren’t placed by his parents or relatives. They were sent to the Honolulu newspapers directly by the Department of Health (then called the Health Bureau).
The birth notices in the Sunday Advertiser say right at the top: “Health Bureau Statistics”:
http://whatreallyhappened.com/IMAGES/obama-1961-birth-announcement-from-honolulu-advertiser0000.gif
I see it differently. We had a president elected by 537 votes in one state. Some Americans vote for the candidate with the nicest hair cut or hair style. Other’s vote for the younger candidate. Others vote for the older candidate; some vote for who they think is better looking. Still others vote by nationality, religion, race or ethnicity.
It’s best not to let any unsubstantiated rumor go unchallenged. That was the whole purpose of “Fight the Smears.”
Wow, 3 years of lies, distortions, and faked birth certificates by the birther klan, and we finally have a real one.
sheesh.
Now, I have several nice bridges for sale. First come, first served; get ’em while they’re hot
OK…I’ve just become infinitely more suspicious. Northland kindly pointed out on another thread this “birth certificate” first appeared on the Post and Fail on March 17:
http://www.thepostemail.com/2011/03/17/final-hawaii-petition-letter-sent/
You’ll note the there it is not on security paper, and no registrar’s stamp on front.
A more accurate statement would be that the image has been processed so as to eliminate evidence that it is on security paper.
Look at it this way. Let’s say you consider candidate A to be someone who would lie about his name and where he was born. Then suppose he provides a document that says he isn’t lying about his name and biirthplace So now, you would vote for A?
As far as squelching rumors, I don’t know how you do that. There were and are rumors that Obama is gay. Other than by the fact that is married and has 2 kids, how exactly would he disprove that? Should he film his next marital encounter with Michelle and put it on YouTube? Suppose some reporter asks about it? Should the White House respond?
Why would the P&E make a document appear less official? Don’t you think if it was originally on security paper, they would show it that way to the whole world? Doesn’t make sense to me. And what about the stamp?
Alarm! Alarm! Everyone to get from street!
Hawaii has used the engraved banknote stuff in the past. The only reason I can think of for the simple paper used now is that modern high-security paper is pricey (like a buck a sheet plus up-front costs). That said, I do not know what security features of which I am not aware might be in the current Hawaii paper.
I think that in future security paper won’t matter so much with the electronic verification systems in place in DMV systems under the Real ID act.
Birth certificates were never supposed to be identity documents anyway. The birth certificate is just supposed to say “Barack Obama was born in Hawaii”, something we can get from the published index. The drivers license is supposed to say “this is Barack Obama.” One hopes that technical means will simplify all this going forward. The birthers will just have to get over it.
That is certainly interesting. As I said in the article, the image could be easily faked. You know, I have this feeling that I have seen that security paper image before–could just be my imagination.
Dr. Conspiracy said:
“the image could be easily faked. You know, I have this feeling that I have seen that security paper image before–could just be my imagination.”
————————————————————————-
So too the image posted on the internet of Obama’s alleged COLB “could be easily faked”.
‘Conspiracy theories’ – LOL
They did NOT say they would not accept them, they said they would need more than just the short form.
No Pilikia at PJ/Fogbow has said she called and begged for a long form and they said no way.
But… I think it was Janice Okubo that said that persons with characters in their names that couldn’t be computer-printed would still get a photocopy BC.
BTW: I was also born at Tripler Army Medical Center (aka Crippler)
Yeah. The only BC we’ve seen with the date and signature stamps on the front didn’t have them in the first image posted…
Which was passed by Republicans!! ha, ha
“White children are now in a minority in 10 American states, and are on course to be a minority nationwide by 2023, according to data from the US census.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/8435636/White-children-to-be-minority-in-US-by-2023.html
Which is why there is so much screaming about Obama. As someone Jewish who lives in Chinatown, welcome to the club. I’m a double minority here.
No, a high-resolution image is harder to fake than one you can barely read.
MichaelN, show the statements from Hawaii verifying this as real. Hawaii has verified Obama’s.
http://hawaii.gov/health/vital-records/obama.html
You are giving it much too much weight.
Let’s turn conspiracy buff for the sake of argument and assume this is actually a doctored pre 2001 issue copy.
All a fraudster would have had to do is substitute the 15 March 2011 stamp and the Onaka name stamp for whatever corresponding date/name was already on the bottom of the front page……or simply add them to the blank bottom of the front page if the pre 2001 date and name stamp was already on the reverse side of the ‘original’.,,,in fact they’d only need to add the 15 March 2011 date stamp if Onaka was already in that job on whatever pre 2001 date that this copy was actually applied for and issued.
The petition letter sent out with this bc enclosed was dated 17 March, only two days after Onaka allegedly signed the bc and the letter writer and cohorts cannot fail to have been aware of the significance of obtaining a ‘post 2001 issue copy long form’ when they wrote that letter. On 17 March they would have been still whooping and hollering about getting hold of it.
Yet strangely not a cheep about that aspect in the letter, not even the gentlest of pokes at Hawaii’s ‘story’ about their alleged copy issue policy after 2001…just a very bland reference to an enclosed sample long form….which just happens to be a photocopy or scan that is chopped of above where the date and name stamps now appear to be.
This doesn’t quite add up, so though it could be legit, merits at least a closer look.
Judge Mental said:
“This doesn’t quite add up, so though it could be legit, merits at least a closer look.”
………………… that would make you a ‘birther’ LOL
Suranis said:
Now this is not her son as the date of birth does not match, nor does it seem to be anything to do with her. Miki has not been shy with showing off all the details of the BC with her own flesh and blood, but in this all the identifying info has been scrubbed. So, whos is it and how did Miki get her hands on it?
—————————————————————————-
http://www.thepostemail.com/2011/04/07/exposing-the-birth-certificate-lies-used-to-cover-for-obama/
“The Post & Email reported last year that one can indeed get a long-form birth certificate, but it wasn’t until a few weeks ago that a friend sent me this one. The friend whose daughter was born at Tripler Army Hospital reported it took seven days and cost $10.00.”
We’re discussing 2008-2009 rumors that were debunked. You’re opinion is that David Axelrod should have ignored this particular rumor. My opinion is that he was right to respond to it within the context of “fight the smears.”
We’ll have to agree to disagree. Just because you don’t respond to every wild claim doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t respond to some of them.
Depends on the county, I think. I looked up Dallas County, an the application does have a check for the “long form” or the “abstract”.
https://www.dallascounty.org/department/countyclerk/documents/BIRTHCERTIFICATEFORMA_007.pdf
City of Dallas is different. Their main webpage says that a regular or abstract can be ordered, but there doesn’t seem to be an option on the application. I’m guessing you specify that if ordered in person. They seem to work with both City of Dallas specific records (sounds like 1983-present records are digitized for same-day issue) and they can also issue an abstract for any Texas birth. They also seem to be able to issue those wallet sized certificates.
http://www.dallascityhall.com/dwu/vital_statistics.html
http://www.dallascityhall.com/pdf/ehs/VitalStatisticsApplication.pdf
That was of course a flippant joke on my part.
This situation cannot be reasonably compared with for example doubts as to whether Obama’s 2007 COLB was forged… in Obama’s case we have raised seals and official stamps plus formal officiial confirmation from the isuers that it is genuinely issued by them and contains no alterations made by any sother party. In the other case we have one internet image differeing from another in respect of date stamps and registrar stamps, zero visible raised seal on either and so far no evidence that Hawaii endorse this as genuine.
> Suppose some reporter asks about it? Should the White House respond?
You know how people are. Even those who do not give anything about a rumour by itself might become suspicious by how someone reacts to that rumour.
And since every reaction (no reaction is also a reaction) can have different pros and cons, it must be weighed carefully.
Let’s take the “he is gay” rumour.
1. If he doesn’t respond at all, some people may think “there must be something to it; if someone said that about me, I’d protest loudly”.
2. If he responds by “I am not gay, but if I were, I don’t think there’d be anything wrong with it”, some people might take this as an indirect admission (others might not like any positive statement about homosexuality, but then again these are quite unlikely to be Obama voters in the first place).
3. If he responds by “I am not gay, look at my beautiful family”, some people might think “yeah well, that’s a typical decoy trick”.
So the simple answer “no, I am not gay” is probably the best one.
But you get the idea how tricky it can be for a politician – it’s almost like you’re dealing with birthers every day; every word you say or don’t say gets over-analyzed and sometimes twisted into its opposite.
In all fairness, I have seen Hawaiian BCs from an earlier period with the registrar’s stamp and date on the front (Miki had posted one of her own’s son, printed in 1981). I do not have enough to call this one a fake or not, but, here are some assumptions and things I have noticed:
1. From my limited viewpoint, I have no reason to doubt that this is a copy of a valid birth record for the named person (though redacted). However, I am not sure if it was printed on 15 March 2011.
2. The fact that P&E does not show the registrar’s stamp and date even though it appears to be the same certificate gives me pause.
3. Doing some manipulating of the image makes the date stamp for the registrar appear off. The year is lighter in tone and has lines on both sides (was this inserted separately from the date?).
4. Where is the seal?
5. Where is the statement from Hawaii that this is Prima Facia evidence, etc.
6. It would have been helpful if Miki had done as FactCheck and also provided photos from various angles.
As the Doc said, I cannot make a determination either way on this image. It does make me wonder but, until I can determine more, that is all I have. Granted, for the birthers, that means fraud and monumental cover-up.
If the certificate is what it purports to be, then I would not expect to see the notice on it. It’s not on older certificates.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42519951
Latest quote from Dr. Fukino:
“…She found the original birth record, properly numbered, half typed and half handwritten, and signed by the doctor who delivered Obama, located in the files…”
An additional quote from this article:
“But Wisch, the spokesman for the attorney general’s office, said state law does not in fact permit the release of “vital records,” including an original “record of live birth” — even to the individual whose birth it records.
“It’s a Department of Health record and it can’t be released to anybody,” he said. Nor do state laws have any provision that authorizes such records to be photocopied, Wisch said. If Obama wanted to personally visit the state health department, he would be permitted to inspect his birth record, Wisch said.
But if he or anybody else wanted a copy of their birth records, they would be told to fill out the appropriate state form and receive back the same computer generated “certification of live birth” form that everybody else gets — which is exactly what Obama did four years ago. ”
Actually, my prediction for the birther reaction is: “Her statements no longer carry any weight as she’s not working for the DoH anymore” or something in that direction.
You know, like totally contrary to Tim Adams who is also not working for Hawaii anymore but whose words are gospel. *sigh*
But, since presumably a Democrat is in that position now, that person’s word would carry less weight for them.
I think you are being too generous. The most likely reaction is probaly going to be she is lying.
In a discussion about this very form, someone made this comment:
http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=7085988&postcount=2619
This got me thinking, because I noticed a few things about the image posted:
1) The printing on it is OFF centered (noticed the borders)
2) Why is the “paper” dirty, if it’s a recent request of the COLB? Its barely a month old, and it looks like the paper has been in storage for several years.
thoughts?
Perhaps you can tell them you are doing a genealogy research and you need the long forms to get both your mothers and fathers addresses to search for relatives.
Bob
I think the “dirty” is the effect you get if you leave the platen cover partially open during scanning.
Nice find Hawaian Born.
That poster indeed has an interesting theory regarding the front page of a document issued long before 2011 and which has its date stamp and signature on the back side possibly having been scanned together with the date stamp section of a document of some other kind issued by Hawaii on 15 March 2011.
To my inexpert eye he appears to have a point about the outermost vertical lines of the “boxes” on the form not being parallel with the vertical border of the security paper…though exactly what that means in a scanning context etc I’m not competent to judge.
Perhaps some of our better versed contributors should have a look at it. There may be a simple explanation.
On a separate note, whether there has been skulduggery or not, his image of this document seems to quite clearly indicate the date to be 15 March 2011 and definitely not 15 March 2001 which some posters on here were unclear about due to earlier images being less well defined.
Keep in mind how a certified copy of an old document would have been made. The Hawaii Department of Health would have photocopied the original certificate from a bound volume onto security paper and then applied the seal. The light leak is explained by the fact that a book was being scanned, not an individual flat piece of paper. We see a light leak on the Sun Yat-Sen certificate which is also a modern photocopying onto security paper. This process also explains skewing observed in the image.
The mechanism for creating a fake would be very easy, assuming that you had a black & white photocopy to work with, like this:
http://www.thepostemail.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/1995-Hawaii-Birth-Certificate.jpg
and a recently issued COLB, with the stamp & seal printed on the back (as with Obama’s certificate).
You simply scan the backside of the COLB and scan the front side of your black on white photocopy. Then you use the “layer” function of photoshop and set the security-paper back of the COLB as the bottom (“background”) layer, and the black//white certificate as the top layer.
Then you reduce the opacity of the top layer (the black/white copy) until the certificate stamp shows through.
You would need to be careful when doing the initial scan to make sure that the documents were both aligned the same way in your scanner, however — otherwise you could have a problem where the lines on printed on the top image didn’t line up properly with the edges of the bottom one.
I think it could also be a problem if the COLB/security paper image had fold lines which showed up in the top BC image, but those fold lines didn’t produce any sort of distortion or break in the lines of the top BC image. That would probably be a dead giveaway to a trained eyes that the image was an overlay rather than being printed on the same paper with the fold lines.
When I try to get that effect by overlaying the black/white image linked to above on top of the fact-check image of the seal & signature from the back of Obama’s certificate, I get a pretty good image when the top one is at 45-50% opacity. However, one problem I ran into was that the print on the stamp appears to be noticeably lighter than the print on the overlaid certificate. I can get better (darker) resolution on the stamp at about 32% opacity of the top layer… but then the print on the top layer becomes hard to make out against the security background.
The other problem is that you can’t really make out the imprinted seal from the COLB image at 50% opacity either.
Anyway, not expressing an opinion here, since I don’t happen to be a forensic expert. I’m just explaining the mechanics that someone could use if they did want to create a fake image.
Well, my prediction turned out to be pretty accurate as birfers are now saying “why is Dr Fukino, a private person now, making these statements and not an official who is still in office?”…
I’m the person who the quoted poster from the randi.org forum was responding to. I don’t necessarily agree with his confident assertion as to how the March 15, 2011 form might have been produced, but I’m certainly wary of the form and Miki Booth’s claims about it.
As I mentioned in the post that the reply linked above was responding to, the fact that a non-stamped copy (in poor white-paper photocopy form) appeared on the Post and Email about a month before Booth’s article is certainly curious.
But what really makes me suspicious is Booth’s own apparent untruths in other matters relating to birth certificate information, especially regarding Hawaiian-issued certificates. She has stated, for instance, that the “short form” copy of her son’s birth certificate that she received in March 2010 was completely different from the copy that Obama received in July 2007 (they’re not…one is just a revised version of the other. The format of Obama’s form was revised in November of 2001, while the format of Booth’s form was revised in October of 2008, but they’re the exact same form otherwise. Miki Booth’s claims about that are at http://www.thepostemail.com/2011/04/07/exposing-the-birth-certificate-lies-used-to-cover-for-obama/ , and you can see where I posted a side-by-side comparison of the two forms, with the dates of format revision, here: http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=7084144#post7084144 . She even went so far as to declare that the “short form” her son received was a true “certificate”, while “what Obama has is still “a piece of junk.””.
And despite the above article being posted just earlier this month, Booth declares that Obama’s “short form” as released has neither a registrar’s stamp nor a raised seal, both of which are blatant falsehoods.
Interestingly, in the pictures the “Danae” posted of all her certificates together, her “short form” was in the same older format that Obama got, meaning that she must have received it before the October 2008 update to the format.
The thing that REALLY made me suspicious, though, was this article from just a few days ago: http://www.thepostemail.com/2011/04/12/breaking-from-hawaii-no-more-long-form-birth-certificates/
In it, the Post and Email’s editor reports that Miki Booth, via a phone call, has reported that a man who had just a few weeks ago obtained a “long form” copy had gone back to the Department of Health to get another one, and was shocked and surprised to learn that the request form he’d used to obtain that copy just last month no longer had a “long form” option, and that this represented a sudden and inexplicable change in Hawaii DOH policy (which the P and E’s editor suggests might be due to Donald Trump’s birther comments in the media). The article even links to the online pdf request form on the DOH website, to show that it’s changed and no longer offers the option to request a “long form”.
…except that, per the Wayback Machine, that pdf hasn’t changed since December of 2005, and even in 2004 only offered the choice between a “certified” form and a “verification” form (see http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=7085367#post7085367 ). The checkbox for a “long form” appears on none of these forms, even the 2004 one.
Since the online request form hasn’t changed, and Hawaiian state officials have maintained all along that the “long form” is not issued (as far back as 2009, the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands has even stated so explicitly), the reported phone call from Miki Booth appears to be less about alerting everyone to a mysterious change in Hawaiian DOH policies, and more like a conspiracy concocted to explain away what everyone has been saying all along – that people born in Hawaii have not, since 2001, been able to request and receive certified copies of the “long form”.
And that’s why I doubt that the March 15, 2011 form is what it’s claimed to be, since all we have is Miki Booth’s word that it is. And I don’t trust her one bit.