Right that's evidently how they treat requests connected to Obama from the public at large, but the law is pretty clear that the director has the authority to release more data than that, and once she releases such data, then legally, it's not confidential information any longer. They just pick and choose which parts of the law they want to cite in order to hide information or justify whatever information that may have been released, which obviously isn't much. And the existance of the birth announcements would mean that they can't claim confidentiality on verifying that particular set of information.
If it’s not index data, then by what authority does Okubo tell Niesse Obama is in the 1961 birth index?
First, I don't you can assume that spokesbabe Okubo is necessarily acting under any specific authority. She might be; she might not be. She says a lot of stuff that is reckless and intentionally misleading. After all, she did originally say Obama's alleged COLB was real, that there were no problems with it, and that it was requested by a valid requestor in June 2008 ... a lot of things she shouldn't have had the authority to say at the time. Second, she said Obama's alleged COLB was real because it looked like her own. Whatever rationale she has for saying Obama's index data is in the 1961 birth index may be because she's going by the public record of Obama's birth and doesn't really know whether it's in the index list, or Fukino authorized her to say which year such index data would be in ... which would be statutorily acceptable. 388-18(d) doesn't prescribe when and to whom disclosure can be made and/or when they can confirm OTHER index data, nor does it say that all disclosures would have to be consistent and equal to all requestors.
Regarding the parents’ addresses, the HDOH could only release that after the rules were changed to authorize that in 1976, and they have to have the parents’ consent before publishing that.
I'd have to see the rules on this. The publication of birth announcements is a pretty broad, standard practice. There may not have been formal rules prior to 1976, so I don't think you can assume the DOH would have been legally unable to provide lists to the newspapers. Our best available evidence says otherwise. Also, once the birth announcement has been published WITH a date of birth, then it would be hard for the OIP to claim confidentiality AFTER the fact.
The trouble is that the Administrative Rules have always forbidden disclosures from the certificates themselves except the release of actual certificates. The exception is the index data.
If index data can be anything, then what would stop Fukino from saying the whole darn BC was index data and selectively choose to tell everybody all the gory details of the vaginal birth, infections, etc from the BC for somebody she particularly doesn’t like - while hiding EVERYTHING (including the legal status of their late, amended BC) for somebody she either likes or who is bribing her?
If Fukino can say 2 items are index data for you but all 65 items are index data for me, then exactly what disclosures are prohibited by the rules and by HRS 338-18a?
BTW, the HDOH has also said that because information allowed on the non-certified abbreviated birth certificate has to follow the same rules for what index data the director can release (no embarrassing info, no illegitimate births, etc), all the HDOH has to release is index data. That’s total bullcrap, as the Ombudsman indirectly confirmed. And it would mean that a non-certified COLB that they would print out would have everything but the child’s name and gender blacked out.
The birth announcements are a whole ‘nother story. Since 1976 the HDOH gives lists for the newspapers, but if they did anything before that - given what I’ve observed and can document - then they also pick and choose which births they report. Would that be within the power of the director - to report some births but not all? And to report some births to one paper but not the other?
See, the issue of due process is a big one, because if records can each be treated differently on a whim, then there is no way to make any sense out of what a government agency does, no way that it even makes any difference what their legal procedures, protocols, and rules are.
I believe that if Fukino was going to reveal anything from Obama’s birth certificate she could do so because Obama had already published what he said was his BC. But I believe the way she had to reveal it - by the language of UIPA, HRS 338-18a, and the HDOH Administrative Rules - was by making public the document itself in response to a UIPA request. She refuses to do that.