Jill Nagamine at the AG’s office claims that they didn’t release confidential information when they said that Obama’s vital records claim a Hawaii birth because they say that Obama wouldn’t have birth index data if his BC didn’t claim a Hawaii birth.
Shortly after that I requested the index to foreign births, which existed in 1981 and was required to be kept permanently. The HDOH claims they don’t have it. (Surprise, surprise!)
So it’s hard to tell whether Nagamine’s argument is accurate or not.
I’m not sure that Fukino is authorized to release information that isn’t the standard index data that she’s given standing authorization to be released. HRS 338-18a forbids disclosures from the actual certificates that aren’t authorized by rules or law. The legal justification that Fukino could give for mentioning the Hawaii location would probably be Obama’s release of that information by supposedly posting his COLB.
That’s how it seems to me, but I’m happy to hear your explanation.
338-18(a) restricts the release of confidential information EXCEPT as authorized by under the rest of 338-18.
We know that under part (d):
“Index data consisting of name and sex of the registrant, type of vital event, and such other data as the director may authorize shall be made available to the public.”
And a previous version of the law said, “Index data consisting of name, age, and sex of the registrant and date, type and file number of the vital event and such other data as the director may authorize may be made available to the public.”
In both versions of the law, the director has discretionary authority to make other data available from a vital record. There’s no explicit restriction of any particular data the director can release, so to say that any information is ‘confidential’ would be technically incorrect because the director has the authority to disclose it and/or authorize the disclosure of additional information.