Orly’s fuzzy FOIA

Orly Taitz

Orly Taitz has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with US Attorney General Eric Holder, asking for “access to the two certified copies of the long form birth certificate for Barack Obama.”  [Link to Taitz web site] She thinks the FOIA requires her to get it in 20 days.

I don’t follow Taitz’s reasoning.

First, Eric Holder is the Attorney General, and his agency is the Justice Department. Why does Taitz think the Justice Department or any federal agency would have Barack Obama’s personal papers? The Freedom of Information Act only applies to federal government documents, which Obama’s birth certificate is not.

Second, we all know by now that information about living persons is normally excluded from what can be obtained by FOIA. Taitz should know this from the response she received from the Social Security Administration when she tried to get Obama’s social-security application.

Third, the FOIA does not require that results to the request be provided within 20 days. The law does require that the agency determine whether it intends to respond within 20 business days (although this doesn’t always happen). That response is a foregone conclusion.

Fourth, the FOIA doesn’t provide for access to original documents only copies. Barack Obama has already published copies.

Then Orly rambles on about not being able to ask the National Archivist for a copy because of some Executive Order. That’s silly since the National Archivist wouldn’t have Barack Obama’s personal papers.

About Dr. Conspiracy

I'm not a real doctor, but I have a master's degree.
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24 Responses to Orly’s fuzzy FOIA

  1. Obsolete says:

    What about all those Navy Seals who spend millions of dollars to hide Obama’s records and tapes?

  2. Northland10 says:

    I don’t follow Taitz’s reasoning.

    I ran out of Irony meters so I am not sure how to take this statement.

  3. Tarrant says:

    I often sit and wonder, when I see things like this, as to whether Orly is simply oblivious, willingly obstinate, or just crazy. She repeatedly makes the same mistakes in filing her lawsuits, in preparing her briefs, in serving the people she’s supposed to serve. She repeatedly files SSN’s unredacted, then when chastised files additional documents with unredacted numbers. She sends out subpoenas without being authorized as an officer of the court, and she insists that the judge in her current case has authorized discovery when nothing could be farther from the truth.

    And now she submits yet another FOIA request, for things that she has been told (politely) in the past are not covered by FOIA, yet when it is denied, she’ll again go on a rampage on her site talking about how The (Black) Man has denied her her Rights.

    I’ve long felt that Orly, for better or worse, really does believe what she’s doing is the right thing (she’s not a Farah who just wants PayPal clicks). But it’s hard to believe that after being repeatedly told how to do what she wants to do, she repeats the same mistakes. (Judge Carter wrote a fairly exhaustive treatise in his dismissal order telling her exactly what she might have to do if she wanted to try things “The Right Way”, while admitting that it was likely to also not work out – and she just accused him of being bought off by his own newly-hired clerk).

  4. Northland10: I don’t follow Taitz’s reasoning.

    I ran out of Irony meters so I am not sure how to take this statement.

    Comments like the one I made here are just filler. I’m not going to say that Taitz is nuttier than a fruitcake because it’s unnecessary. In place of that, I just put in a little bridge between the introduction and the fruitcake.

  5. Joey says:

    The birtherreport blog’s owner known as “obamareleaseyourrecords’ is in Hawaii and is apparently headed to Indonesia. Birthers are asking him to get Virginia Sunahara to go get a birth certificate for them for her deceased daughter who died 50 years ago.
    Such class, these people.
    Others want to know if Virginia Sunahara looks wealthy, like she’s already been bought off by Obama’s operatives.

  6. richCares says:

    “obamareleaseyourrecords’
    the sickest birther out there!

  7. GeorgetownJD says:

    This kooky request stems from Orly’s misunderstanding of the Presidential Records Act, http://www.archives.gov/about/laws/presidential-records.html, and Executive Order 13489, http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2009/pdf/E9-1712.pdf.

    She could also benefit from reading up on the specifics of FOIA. Well, whadya know? The Department of Justice just happens to have a guide about FOIA, http://www.justice.gov/oip/foi-act.htm.

  8. GeorgetownJD: This kooky request stems from Orly’s misunderstanding of the Presidential Records Act,

    And of course the birth certificate isn’t a “Presidential Record” as defined by the Act but rather a “personal record.”

  9. Let’s assume we are in Orly Taitz fantasy land for just a minute and the LFBC were declared a Presidential Record. Wouldn’t the White House just send a copy of the same pdf that was already released?

  10. capricorn says:

    And even if the Executive Order did somehow apply to personal documents like a birth certificate, it only applies to the documents of a FORMER President, not someone currently in office. Plus, according to Orly, Obama isn’t even the President because of his ineligibility, so the Executive Order wouldn’t apply to anything of his anyway!

  11. misha says:

    Orly and Lieberman are standard issue refuseniks. They spend their day licking their wounds.

    Orly, please sue me. I need the publicity.

  12. Scientist says:

    The birthers obsession with government documents is quite touching given that they automatically disbelieve anything the government says.

    But, their fundamental flaw lies much deeper-in basic biology. They have confused humans with salmon. Salmon return to their birthplace to spawn, humans don’t. Humans have their babies where they live, not where they were born. If a giant tsunami had destroyed all the birth records of Hawaii, the President would STILL have been born there, because that is where his parents lived. There was no force of nature insistiing that he be born in Kenya simply because his father had been born there. if there were such a force, it would have drawn his mother to Kansas, not Kenya.

    Human babies are born where their parents (especially Mom) lives. That means Obama was born in Hawaii not Kenya or Kansas, and Donald Trump was born in New York, not Scotland, and George Bush was born in Connecticut, no matter how much he wanted people to believe he was born in Texas.

  13. richCares says:

    Orly needs to google “referral service for mental health”, it would certainly be to he benefit.

  14. Joey says:

    There are still birthers who say that Obama’s long form is a forgery primarily because it
    differs in physical appearance from the Nordykes’. That’s birther rationalization #8365.
    Every 3 and 4 year old birther rumor gets recycled. Just today there are threads on birther sites about Obama’s Occidental College records show him as a foreign student going to school on a Fullbright fellowship.

    My personal favorite birther rumor is that Hawaiian Law from 1860 until 1967 required all children born in wedlock in Hawaii to have a Christian first name. Since Barack is not a Christian first name, either Obama was born in violation of the law, his parents weren’t really married or Barack is not his real first name.

  15. Sef says:

    Joey: My personal favorite birther rumor is that Hawaiian Law from 1860 until 1967 required all children born in wedlock in Hawaii to have a Christian first name. Since Barack is not a Christian first name, either Obama was born in violation of the law, his parents weren’t really married or Barack is not his real first name.

    Now that’s a new one to me. Do they think we’re living in Germany?

  16. Joey says:

    Sef: Now that’s a new one to me. Do they think we’re living in Germany?

    Yes, they do, between 1933 and 1945.
    If you have a strong stomach, check it out:
    http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2660806/posts

  17. James M says:

    Joey: Yes, they do, between 1933 and 1945.
    If you have a strong stomach, check it out:
    http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2660806/posts

    If I could post on FR I would ask about Israel Kamakawiwiole’s “Christian” name.

  18. Joey says:

    James M: If I could post on FR I would ask about Israel Kamakawiwiole’s “Christian” name.

    If I could still post there, I would ask if the Old Testament counts as “Christian!”

  19. Scientist says:

    Sef: Now that’s a new one to me. Do they think we’re living in Germany?

    Actually France until the 1960s used to only allow registration of given names that were on the saint’s calendar. Unrestricted choice only came in 1993.

    No place in the Us had such a law, least of all Hawaii, where Japanese and Native Hawaiian first names are very common.

  20. Paul Pieniezny says:

    misha:
    Orly and Lieberman are standard issue refuseniks. They spend their day licking their wounds.

    Orly, please sue me. I need the publicity.

    She will not sue you because truth is an absolute defense in libel cases.

  21. Paul Pieniezny says:

    Scientist: Actually France until the 1960s used to only allow registration of given names that were on the saint’s calendar.Unrestrictedchoice only came in 1993.

    No place in the Us had such a law, least of all Hawaii, where Japanese and Native Hawaiian first names are very common.

    Not really 100% true, from 1900 onwards I think.

    The funny thing is that until the end of the second world war, when Anglo-Saxon names took over, lapsed Catholics and atheists in France, Belgium and the Roman Catholic parts of Germany gave their sons and daughters “deviant” foreign names such as Mercedes, Nathalie, Carlos, Iwan, William.

    You just had to prove the town administration had allowed that name before. The first father registering that name had to have a paper from a foreign diplomat testifying that the name was on the saints’ calendar in his country.

    It is funny because we have to thank a politically liberal father for the car name Mercedes, which is actually an originally very Roman Catholic Mary name (at one time, all Spanish girls were called Maria, so they differentiated between Maria de la Conception, Maria del Rocio, Maria de las Mercedes, Maria de los Milagros and so on). One forefather of Adolf Hitler was called Nepomuk and some historians have thought that could mean the Hitler family was originally Czech – but it was just a liberal father who was to blame.

  22. Horus says:

    Well, she has to show she is doing something or the crazies will stop hitting her Paypal button!

  23. John Potter says:

    Horus:
    Well, she has to show she is doing something or the crazies will stop hitting her Paypal button!

    Even better if what she does is crazy / ineffectual. If these shysters make progress, they undermine their job security. So long as they flail, it’s because the system is corrupt, and the gravy train (powered by the easily impressed, willing believers) will roll. Keeping this thing going as long as possible is truly an art. A vile, disgusting endeavour, but no fluke.

  24. Horus says:

    Reality Check: Let’s assume we are in Orly Taitz fantasy land for just a minute and the LFBC were declared a Presidential Record. Wouldn’t the White House just send a copy of the same pdf that was already released?

    BINGO!
    None of the nuts understand that what he has already produced is Prima facie evidence in any citizenship dispute.

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