"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.
You are ignoring that the law only forbids disclosures not already authorized by the rules.
As you noted, the rules say in Section 2.1A (emphasis mine):
“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. ***
So then you look to the law to see what the law permits. And the law (HRS 338-18a) only forbids whatever isn’t already authorized by the rules or laws. The rest of HRS 338-18 applies to direct viewing of the original documents and certified copies so none of it applies to non-certified abbreviated certificates.
The law and rules do not contradict each other.
The independent statements of two different HDOH workers isn’t enough. Instead, I need to find the needle in the haystack, someone’s fulfilled UIPA request for somebody else’s non-certified COLB - a needle which wouldn’t exist in this case because UIPA requests are only required to be kept for 2 years. Two years ago the election was already done. They had already been refusing (for over 5 months by then) to disclose a long-form BC to the registrant, which is a direct violation of UIPA.
What you are saying, then, is that you will never believe, no matter how many HDOH workers say the same thing.
At least we have that straight now.
Here’s the video: http://myveryownpointofview.wordpress.com/2010/10/14/some-tropical-truth/
Another post addressing whether the woman ordering the BC on the video was Danae, at: http://myveryownpointofview.wordpress.com/2010/10/20/breaking-support-for-my-video-woman-ordering-her-long-form-bc-in-hi/