Orly Taitz Files Opposition to Motion for Summary Judgment in Obama Social Security Case

Atty. Orly Taitz told The Post & Email this evening that she has filed an Opposition to a Motion for Summary Judgment filed by the government in the case of Taitz v. Astrue, which seeks a copy of the social security application issued with the number which Barack Hussein Obama II is currently using.

On July 11, 2011, Taitz’s Motion to Compel in the same case was docketed by the U.S. District Court in Washington, DC, which is presiding over the case thus far. Taitz described the new development in this way:

The government filed a Motion for Summary Judgment. This motion is usually filed when there is already standing in the case, but they want to dismiss it before trial. They filed, and I am responding. They are really misrepresenting the case. They are saying, “Attorney Taitz asked for an application for a social security number for a live person, of a ‘live holder’ of the social security card, and according to the guidelines, we cannot provide it.”

My response was first that the “undisputed facts” which they cited are wrong, because I didn’t ask for the number of a live holder of the social security number; I asked for the application of the lawful holder of that social security number. I didn’t ask for the application of a live holder. ...

Here's one of those valid points and backed up by a SCOTUS opinion in "DOJ v. Reporters Committee For Freedom of Press, 489 U.S. 749, 772-73 (1989)"

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-snip-

"Even, as the last four digits of the SSN 042-68-4425 are redacted, the public knows, that

the first three digits, 042, signify the state of Connecticut-this is public knowledge. Obama’s own memoirs Dreams from my father and Audacity of Hope show, that Obama was never a resident of Ct. As such, the controversy is already in public domain. The public wants to know, how the US president got a social security number from the state of Connecticut, even though he never resided there. Privacy is no longer at play. [Obama has no expectation to privacy here]

The balance between the almost nonexistent privacy interest and the public interest in disclosure here tips very sharply in favor of disclosure. While Congress did not intend the FOIA to facilitate “disclosure of information about private citizens that is accumulated in various governmental files but that reveals little or nothing about an agency’s own conduct,“(emphasys added) DOJ v. Reporters Committee For Freedom of Press, 489 U.S. 749, 772-73 (1989) (quotations omitted), the former agency’s conduct in assigning or re-assigning a social-security number to a person with no apparent contact with a state, at a time when the former agency assigned numbers based on connection with that state, has become an issue the subject of great public interest. “[U]nless a FOIA request advances ‘the citizens’ right to be informed about what their government is up to,’ no relevant public interest is at issue.” National Ass’n of Home Builders v. Norton, 309 F.3d 26, 34 (D.C. Cir. 2002) (quoting Reporters Comm., 489 U.S. at 773). Google search of “Obama” and “SSN” will result in 1,730,000 hits, and demonstrates the “public interest” in this issue. The information sought here would clearly advance “the citizens” right to be informed as to what their government is, or was, up to, and whether in fact the SSA’s predecessor agency’s processes were possibly subverted in a scheme to evade its controls. To not release the document would simply feed the public’s belief that the government has been party to, or the victim of, a fraud. "

-end snip-

And here is the he Supreme Court's conclusion in DOJ v. Reporters Committee For Freedom of Press:

"Finally: The privacy interest in maintaining the practical obscurity of rap-sheet information will always be high. When the subject of such a rap sheet is a private citizen and when the information is in the Government's control as a compilation, rather than as a record of "what the Government is up to," the privacy interest protected by Exemption 7(C) is in fact at its apex while the FOIA-based public interest in disclosure is at its nadir. See Parts IV and V, supra. Such a disparity on the scales of justice holds for a class of cases without regard to individual circumstances; the standard virtues of bright-line rules are thus present, and the difficulties attendant to ad hoc adjudication may be avoided. Accordingly, we hold as a categorical matter that a third party's request for law enforcement records or information about a private citizen [Obama should have less of an expectation of privacy since he is a public figure] can reasonably be expected to invade that citizen's privacy, and that when the request seeks no "official information" about a Government agency, but merely records that the Government happens to be storing, the invasion of privacy is "unwarranted." The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed.

It is so ordered."

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