Posted on 10/21/2008 9:14:12 AM PDT by pissant
One of the most intense allegations of the ongoing lawsuit against Sen. Barack Obama alleging ineligibility for the presidency is whether or not Mr. Obama can produce his birth certificate.
If Mr. Obama were to produce his birth certificate, it would lay the entire question to rest. It would prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the U.S. government officially recognizes Mr. Obama's citizenship. The Obama campaign says that it has already produced this document, a scanned copy of which is available at the campaign's "Fight the Smears" Web site.
One point critics of Mr. Obama have made is the fact that the document posted is not, in fact, a birth certificate. It is a birth certification, which is a computer-generated printout of a birth record. A certification is a cheap print-off for people who have lost their original birth certificates. For most people, there is little practical difference between a certificate of live birth and a certification of live birth, although the certification requires extra verification when being used like a birth certificate.
Because of the tenuous nature of identifying a certification of birth as genuine, it requires an embossed seal and authoritative signature. The low-resolution scan available on the Obama campaign Web site appears to have neither of those. The ink from a date stamp, "June 6, 2007," is visible clearly, but it appears that the document does not have a seal or signature. The campaign only scanned the front of the document.
Without the seal and signature, the document on the Obama Web site lacks legal weight, and does not count as representing the official birth record of Mr. Obama.
Philip Berg, a former deputy attorney general for Pennsylvania, has filed suit against Mr. Obama, alleging that he is not legally qualified to serve as president. He has indicated that if Mr. Obama were to produce certified documents proving that he is a natural born citizen, he will withdraw his case.
Mr. Berg maintains that Mr. Obama is not a natural born U.S. citizen, but others wonder if there are more reasons why Mr. Obama and the Democratic National
Committee have not laid the question to rest by releasing the documents. Some think that there may be embarrassing information about Mr. Obama that could be inferred from the papers.
The original birth certificate would normally have an entry for religion, and many suppose he would have been listed as Muslim, an image Mr. Obama has worked hard to distance himself from. Others think it might have shown that his parents were not legally married, even though Mr. Obama contends that his parents were married in good faith before separating upon discovering his father had never divorced his last wife.
The Obama campaign says that the idea that Mr. Obama is not natural born is preposterous and cites the certification of birth as an example. But until a physical and verifiable document is produced for their critics, the lawsuit is expected to continue.
Do you have your original birth certificate? I don't, and I'm sure many other people do not, either. Not a big deal- you just go to the appropriate state agency and get a COLB, just like Obama did. Maybe some states will give you a copy of the original, if they still have it on file, but other states will simply print out a certificate, like the one posted at 26.
Look, I deal with corporate documents all the time and getting copies of original documents from state agencies is hit or miss. In many cases, all you can expect to get is a print-out much like the COLB you are hyper-ventilating about.
How long has duel citizenship been illegal between US and Indonesian country?
Maybe to keep the attention of some of us focused where it will ultimately do him no harm. A game of three card monte played out across the fruited plain.
No, Negro or Negroid, not "Black", that didn't come into common use until a few years after '61.
US law does not forbid dual citizenship. It does not encourage it, but there is nothing illegal about being a citizen of both the US and Kenya, for example. But you are correct that whether or not someone is an American citizen is purely an issue of American law- your status as a citizen of another country is irrelevant in that determination.
The U.S. State Department acknowledges that U.S. citizens in fact hold passports from other countries, but U.S. policy and law would not permit anyone to officially acknowledge a U.S. citizen's citizenship of any other country.
That's not correct. The US is aware that I am both a citizen of the US and Canada- it comes up every time they swipe my passport when I enter the US (the two countries share immigration information, so Canadian immigration officials see the same info when they swipe either my Canadian or American passport- I typically carry both when I travel).
Tried to make it clickable. Someone showed me hoe , but I guess I screwed it up. Sorry HTML incompetent.
Heres the link have to do for yourselves. Maybe someone can teach me again. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MLKH7__IEo&feature=related
? Go figure - it happened all by itself.
I don't know what Indonesian law states, but dual citizenship is perfectly legal under American law.
Hospitals may retain copies, but the document in question is a state document, filed by the hospital/doctor/midwife. It would also have anotated upon it, any name changes, official adoptions, etc, and changes back as well. Barak O to Barry S and back to Barak O for example.
Since the state has the document, they can produce it, or a certified copy of it. Not an extract, which is what the CLB amounts to.
U.S. Customs treats you according to the passport you present; if you were to show your Canadian passport after standing in the U.S. nationals line, they would tell you to go stand in the other line.
The U.S. government acknowledges that other governments may consider U.S. citizens to be citizens of their country, but the U.S. government does not consider that consideration to have any force in its own policies. Someone who is considered a citizen by both the U.S. and Canada, for instance, has no right to consult with the Canadian consulate if he is arrested in the U.S., for instance, if his U.S. citizenship is known to police.
The reason for demanding the original is that the certification only establishes citizenship, not the natural-born citizenship required for office. Because adoptive birth certificates and so forth are issued, the mere certification of live birth is not a sufficient credential; the additional detail on the actual certificate is required to dispose of the issue definitively.
Great summary, Pissant. The only thing I would add/correct to the facts you've stated above is that a certain lawyer person is totally oblivious to them and must really, really enjoy losing.
Whether you're practicing law or playing cards, you NEVER show everything that's in your hand until the time is right (if ever).
All I can say, right now, is that the FactCheck photos were taken after the COLB image was posted, not before, since some of these photos were made from printouts of enhanced copies of the image, and not from Obama's real COLB.
FactCheck provided no complete photos of the Seal (and second fold) on the reverse side of the COLB because the source Seal on the real COLB they used (NOT Obama's) had no fold line going through it.
The absence of this fold (or the upper fold) is either because the source COLB was obtained in person at Hawaii's Vital Records offices and was, therefore, not folded for mailing (like the one I received from Dan), or the bottom of the COLB was folded ABOVE the seal like several of the other COLB images we've all seen.
However, because all of their alleged, frontal photos of the COLB show a fold slicing through the upper portion of the Seal, they had to crop all their photos of the back right below where the fold line should have been visible running through both the Seal and the bottom half of the COLB itself.
In other words, the photos taken of the front side and reverse side of a COLB did not come from a single COLB!!!
Naturally, I have the visual proof to back up everything I said here, \but like Kenny Rogers once sang,
"Ya gotta know when to hold them..."
And, you better believe that these are a few of my hole cards.
Obama obviously has a US passport. Is there a way to find out which forms of documentation 'The One" used to obtain his US passport?
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/03/21/obama.passport/index.html
updated 8:51 p.m. EDT, Fri March 21, 2008
Obama urges inquiry into passport snooping
(CNN) -- Sen. Barack Obama called for an investigation Friday into how the security of the passport files of the three remaining presidential candidates was breached.
The State Department admitted Friday that the passport files of Obama, Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. John McCain had been accessed without authorization.
"One of the things that the American people count on in their interactions with any level of government is that if they have to disclose personal information, that it stay personal and stay private," Obama said in Portland, Oregon.
"And when you have not just one but a series of attempts to tap into people's personal records, that's a problem not just for me but for how our government is functioning," he said.
Obama said he expected "a full and thorough investigation" by the administration in conjunction with congressional oversight committees.
The State Department's inspector general has started an investigation, department officials said.
Attorney General Michael Mukasey said the Justice Department had not launched an investigation and did not expect to do so unless it was asked by the inspector general.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Obama's files had been viewed three times by contractors working for the agency starting in January.
The department hires contractors to design, build and maintain their systems and help employees with searches.
One of the contractors who viewed Obama's file also looked at the file of McCain, the probable Republican presidential nominee.
Two contractors were fired and a third disciplined after they accessed Obama's file, McCormack said.
"We are reviewing our options with that person and his employment status," McCormack said.
In Clinton's case, a trainee accessed her files in 2007.
McCormack said two of the contractors in the Obama case were "low-level" personnel and the other was in a mid-level position with no management role.
McCormack said senior management at the State Department was not aware of the incidents until Thursday afternoon. The breaches involving Obama's file occurred January 9, February 21 and March 14.
McCormack said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice apologized to Clinton and Obama and would soon speak to McCain, who is traveling in Europe.
"If anyone's privacy was breached, then they deserve an apology and a full investigation, and I believe that will take place," McCain said in Paris Friday.
Rice said she told Obama the State Department inspector general would launch an investigation.
"I told him I was sorry, and I told him that I myself would be very disturbed if anyone had looked at my passport files and that, therefore, I will stay on top of this," Rice said.
Rice said "it appears that the system worked" because the unauthorized viewing was flagged, but "it should have been known to senior management."
State Department officials said the contractor companies are The Analysis Corporation and Stanley Inc. The latter has had contracts with the department since 1992 and was recently awarded a $570 million contract to provide support for passport processing.
Stanley Inc. officials confirmed that two of its employees had unauthorized access to Obama passport files. Both individuals were fired, according to a company statement Friday. "While this is a rare occurrence, we regret the unauthorized access of any individual's private information," the statement said.
The Analysis Corp., also in a statement Friday, confirmed that one of the contractors involved in the breach was a company employee and called it "an isolated incident."
"This individual's actions were taken without the knowledge or direction of anyone at The Analysis Corp. and are wholly inconsistent with our professional and ethical standards," the statement on the company's Web site said.
The company, which has contracted with the U.S. government for nearly 20 years, said it would fully cooperate with the federal investigation.
A State Department source said passport files contain scanned images of passport applications, birth date and basic biographical information, records of passport renewal and possibly citizenship information.
The White House said Rice briefed President Bush about the security breach involving Obama's files at 7 a.m. Friday.
Undersecretary of State Pat Kennedy briefed the staff of the three senators Friday. "We at the State Department have very, very rigorous rules about controls and access for privacy materials, and we review them regularly. When you have a large organization with a lot of people in it, mistakes and errors happen from time to time, but that's why we stepped in and we caught these," Kennedy said after the meeting.
But at the time, Indonesia did not allow dual citizenship. Hence, he could not be a US citizen when he had the Indonesian passport.
Looks like the set from 24! Where’s Jack Bauer?
LOL.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.