Posted on 02/03/2009 11:52:39 AM PST by dascallie
You are completely missing my point. A JPEG image of an official document is not an official document. It is not an official document before you alter it, after you alter it, or if you translate it into Klingon. Altering a digital image does not affect its status as an official document, because it never was an official document.
I really don't know how to make that any clearer.
Second, the cert number is a means to validate the said document, that number leads to no more information then is contained on the document that is submitted as proof.
Accepting for the sake of argument that that is true -- I don't know one way or the other -- it's irrelevant. My assertion was that someone believed that the certificate number was something that ought to be obscured before the image was posted to the Web; that caution may have been unnecessary.
Even if it is real, what possible information is on a BC that is private or at least that the public doesn't have a right to know?
The parents' social security numbers, for starters.
ROE:”The parents’ social security numbers, for starters.”
I don’t know if social security numbers are typical for BCs issued today but I know they were not put on BCs back in the 60’s. You can even reference post #155 on this thread for a BC that was issued in Hawaii in the 60’s. I see no entry for social security numbers.
My wife and I were both born in the 60’s and neither of our BCs have social security numbers (and we were born in different states).
You’re assuming that whoever posted the .jpg knew all that. I suspect he didn’t put in weeks of research into the arcana of Hawaiian birth certificates in 1961 before deciding to black out the number.
And let me point out again, that questioning the decision to black out the cert number on the scan is pointless. There are also photographs and it is not blacked out there.
Breaking it down to the "nitty gritty", I agree.
If we except this as true, then the document presented proffers absolutely no evidentiary value as to his Constitutional eligibility, as we just decided it's not an "official document".
The parents' social security numbers, for starters.
I was born 6 months before Obama, both of my parent's full names, occupations, current address, employers name and address, doctors name, hospital etc. but no SS #
I think we can both agree the cert number was redacted so the validity of the document could not be verified.
I was evidently mistaken on that point, I don't know where I read that. I've done a little research and have not found anything that says travel to Indonesia was restricted, maybe I did confuse it with Pakistan.
Thanks for pointing it out.
So which one is the fake one? And don't tell me they're the same document because they're not
Beware, FR can be addicting :)
You say they are not, why?
Correct. I would not expect any government official or any court to accept a JPEG as evidence. In fact, any photo is admissible as evidence only with the testimony of the person who took it, and is only as credible as the photographer. Whether the general public finds it convincing is a question left to each person who views it.
My employer has a photocopy of my passport; it verifies my place of birth and various other information they want to be able to verify. The photocopy will not get me through Customs. It's good enough for their purposes, because the hiring manager held the actual passport and was convinced of its authenticity.
I think we can both agree the cert number was redacted so the validity of the document could not be verified.
The purpose that seems most obvious to me is so that it couldn't be used to gain access to more information -- including, but not limited to, going into the database to verify it.
Whether or not it could be used for nefarious purpose is irrelevant; all that my hypothesis requires is that someone decided not to post it on his Web site, whether he was misinformed or over-cautious. And as mlo points out, it is easy to find other photos of the document in which the certificate number is not blacked out, so if it was an attempt to thwart verification it was a lame one.
But that's the point, there is no information contained in a BC that can be used for nefarious purposes.
Whether or not it could be used for nefarious purpose is irrelevant
I disagree, I think it is relevant for the reason stated above.
My position is this, there are enough questions and arguments on both sides of this issue. The problem is that no conclusion has been reached, to my satisfaction anyway and I still have my doubts about this.
Their current attempt to completely socialize this country gives me much pause especially when he might not even belong in office. To take it even further, I think we have witnessed a political coupe.
It's not because I want to believe it or am desperate to find some idiotic conspiracy to throw him out, his policies are grounds for that in my view.
The bottom line is that I have zero trust in these wannabe dictators and frankly wouldn't put anything past them.
Here we're getting into some parsing. The two photos aren't the same "document" because they're not the same photo; the claim, and I have seen nothing to indicate otherwise, is that all the pictures in circulation are photos/scans of the same piece of paper. The redaction was done to the photo after the fact.
The photo with the number redacted is an altered photo, but I wouldn't call it a "fake," because it is what it purports to be. Obscuring part of a photo is an established and practice in photojournalism, generally considered ethical, as long as it is stated or obvious that the image has been altered.
According to a Web site I found for the state of Vermont, that state's birth certificates are required to include the parents' social security numbers. I'd wager that no one on FR knew the particulars of the information that was included on a Hawaiian birth certificate c. 1961.
A common modification for photos is to obscure the face of someone who is not relevant to the story and who is not a public figure. For example, in covering the story about Christian Bale's foul-mouthed temper tantrum, a lot of news photos use file footage with the other people in the shot blurred out. Those people aren't involved in the story. If it should turn out later that someone in the photo was relevant to the story, then he didn't need to be blurred; but that doesn't change the rationale for the blurring in the first place.
>>>Whether or not it could be used for nefarious purpose is irrelevant
I disagree, I think it is relevant for the reason stated above.
Is the "reason stated above" that you believe it was obscured with the intention of making it impossible to verify? If so, you're imputing a motive to an unknown individual based on, as far as I can tell, nothing but a guess. The fact that someone obscured the certificate number is clear. The motive is supposition.
If the number was obscured by someone at the Obama campaign with the purpose of thwarting verification, why would they then have allowed images without the number obscured?
Their current attempt to completely socialize this country gives me much pause especially when he might not even belong in office. To take it even further, I think we have witnessed a political coupe.
If a coup involves winning a majority of the popular vote, I think you've defined any meaning whatsoever out of the word coup.
On the contrary, in several of the many post on this subject, there have been images of BC's issued from Hawaii at a similar time that did not have SS #'s. Even if the cert did, couldn't they just redact it? Now no one would question why that was redacted for obvious reasons.
Is the "reason stated above" that you believe it was obscured with the intention of making it impossible to verify? If so, you're imputing a motive to an unknown individual based on, as far as I can tell, nothing but a guess.
Yes. Many "guesses; are quite obvious, that argument won't fly
If a coup involves winning a majority of the popular vote
That's not what I'm saying at all. I am basing it on the contrived and plotted economic "crisis" we're experiencing. But that's another discussion and off topic.
LJ, to me it seems way beneath the dignity of some of you guys to be sparring with that type of poster. Between the trolls and FMN yesterday these eligibility threads are becoming unreadable, which is, of course, their object.
The arguments used by those people are beyond pathetic, which is why I refuse to address any of them. They spew lie after lie, which makes real constitutionalists want to respond, and then respond to the response with still more lies. And I agree with you—some of them do seem to be the same person using multiple screen names. I ran into such a poster on YouTube on some sports vids. Some experts found out that he had NINETEEN screen names and they succeeded in pinning down his location through his ISP. So I wouldn’t be surprised if we have the same problem here.
I especially enjoyed the argument used by one of the usual suspects who said that a person claiming to be a PhD had the burden of proof to demonstrate that he in fact had a doctorate. But it’s the so-called “birthers’” responsibility to proove that the Usurper was not eligible.
Sorry about the late comments...I had to go to the hospital for a pre-op yesterday.
You may doubt it, but there is no evidence to support your doubts.
All the available evidence indicates that birth announcements were sourced from the dept. of health. There is no evidence to indicate otherwise.
Does that make the Obama birth announcements (both of them), by themselves, proof beyond reasonable doubt that he was born in Hawaii?
No, but it's only one piece of evidence. Once you combine this with all the other available evidence, there is no room for reasonable doubt he was born in Hawaii.
Especially since there is zero evidence that he was born anywhere else.
This is absolute nonsense. All you are doing is trying to define the ground rules in a way in which honest disagreement with you is not possible. If someone does disagree, they are a troll, or are lying. This kind of attitude is a dead giveaway that your position is intellectually weak.
People can disagree with you, and do so honestly, and do so without being an Obama supporter. They can even be right. But as long as you continue to deny the possibility you'd never find out. That's not how to find the truth.
It is up to the person making a claim to support that claim. They don't get taken seriously by default. If someone claims to have a Phd and uses that to claim expertise, it is up to them to back it up. If someone claims that Obama is legally ineligible to be president, it is up to them to back that up.
I know what you were getting at is that Obama should have to prove his eligibility. And I don't disagree. But that's another subject. He has proved everything he was required to prove to anyone he was required to prove it to. If those procedures weren't thorough enough then we need to change them. But that doesn't prove he is ineligible in fact. That claim requires the persons making it to prove it.
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