Alfred Itamura, with the approval of ombudsman Robin Matsunaga, says noncertified copies are definitely permitted. Disagree if you like but do realize that you are disagreeing with the Ombudsman’s Office and not just me.
Section 2.3 of the DOH Administrative Rules is a general reference for ALL requests, not just noncertified requests. So it is talking about requests for certified copies as well as for non-certified copies. To say that the applicant has to establish their right to receive the records is necessary because certified copies are restricted. To establish my right to receive a non-certified abbreviated certificate all I need to do is establish that I am “any person”.
There is no conflict.
You’re ignoring what I said. Rather than let anybody know they are treating Obama’s records differently, they are choosing to break the law with EVERYBODY. It’s actually the same mentality as shown in the “standing” issues: as long as they screw everybody equally it doesn’t matter that they are screwing anybody - or in this case, breaking the disclosure laws for everybody.
What I’m talking about is not water-cooler talk. This is communications that both I and my colleague were told by workers at the HDOH when we questioned what the heck was going on with our requests. In both instances we were told that Obama’s records are being treated differently, and that the delays we were experiencing were because the HDOH treats Obama’s records differently.
I’d have to look to find it again, but Buckeye Texan also spoke to a worker at the HDOH, and the worker would only engage on his questions if the worker remained anonymous to Buckeye Texan. Didn’t want anybody being able to cite her as the source for any information.
And the HDOH worker my colleague spoke to would not respond to any further communications from her after the conversation where he nervously explained that she had fulfilled all the legal requirements to get a verification but her request was being held up at the AG’s office because of the dilemma of not wanting the refusal to release Obama’s records to stick out like a sore thumb.
Those workers are afraid of retaliation.
This is not just SNAFU.
A higher volume of requests for Obama’s information would only make a difference in the “backlog” being only on the Obama stuff if the supposed “Obama” requests were kept separate from other requests - which they are. That is what the worker told me, and the index data request delay that my colleague experienced only makes sense if the Obama requests WERE segregated. So what we experienced matches what the HDOH worker stated.
The video of a long-form being ordered at the HDOH office and the HDOH worker saying it should arrive in a week was taken in the summer of 2010 - a year after the HDOH claimed they couldn’t release long-form BC’s. And right here on FR we had a poster a month or two ago who received a copy of her long-form BC from Hawaii by mail - albeit after a LOT of hassle from the HDOH. You can talk to Danae about that particular situation.
UIPA is clear that a person is entitled to receive their own records (unless it’s about a criminal investigation, for instance), so if they’ve got a long-form in the HDOH office, the law requires the HDOH to disclose it to them on request.
"We find that the above-cited rules do not require the DOH to provide you with a noncertified abbreviated copy of President Obama’s birth certificate."
Again, if you can show that HDOH has issued noncertified copies of someone else's COLB between 1977 and 2008, you'll convince me that they are treating the information differently for Obama. If you can't show that, all you've shown is that the HDOH decided not to issue noncertified copies for anyone after the 1977 statute, and instead fulfill information release requirements with index data. You have not shown that they are breaking the law, nor does Itamura's letter agree with you on that.
I think you are overlooking a lot. For instance, you say To say that the applicant has to establish their right to receive the records is necessary because certified copies are restricted ignores the fact that a few sections talk about all copies being restricted. Again, the relevant section 2.1 A says
Vital records authorized under chapter 338 Hawaiian Revised Statutes are not available for or open to public inspection. Access to the records, including copies or information from them is not permitted except as provided by law or regulations the Department of Health may promulgate.and 338-18 (a) forbids anyone
to disclose information contained in vital statistics records, or to copy or issue a copy of all or part of any such record, except as authorized by this part or by rules adopted by the department of health.
This puts you in the apparently contradictory position of acknowledging that the statue (and rules) say that no one may even inspect the certificate data without proving their qualification, but that it's fine to issue a noncertified copy of that same data. (Does not compute!) Obviously, their rules are a poorly written mess, but it doesn't surprise me they would choose to be guided by the 1977 statute rather than the poorly written rules document.
A higher volume of requests for Obama’s information would only make a difference in the “backlog” being only on the Obama stuff if the supposed “Obama” requests were kept separate from other requests - which they are.
There are two types of "treated differently" for us to distinguish. There is the type that would be illegal, which is refusing to release the same type of information for one person that HDOH is willing to release for another. The second type is where the process is different, but the information released or not released is the same. You can bet that requests for information on Lindsay Lohan's or Brittney Spear's medical condition are handled differently in a hospital than requests for information on John Doe. Why? Because requests for information on John Doe are rather routine and easily handled; lawsuits and large amounts of adverse publicity are unlikely. Requests on celebrities on the other hand, can generate huge problems, so they are handled differently to make sure the enquirer doesn't persuade or trick the employee into unauthorized disclosure. Our hospital, for example, had a policy that all requests for information on the condition of a public figure had to go through the PR office. It doesn't surprise me that any HDOH worker would be nervous about giving out information and want anonymity - if they are not specifically authorized to speak for the department, they're not supposed to give out any additional information. That's a feature of many bureaucracies these days.
Please link to the video of the long form request and promise so I can see it for myself. I did do a search for Danae's material, only to find that the images had been removed from the posting. Also, can you link to the HDOH statement's giving short vs. long form certificates? I recall a statement that the COLB is what is routinely sent when a certificate is requested, but not anything else about what is and isn't possible to obtain.