Expert: No Doubt Obama's Birth Certificate Is Legit

Fox News ^ | 4/29/11 | Jana Winter

[Nachum]

It didn’t take long for some of President Obama’s doubters to claim the long-awaited birth certificate posted online by the White House on Wednesday had been altered or might be a fake.

But a leading software expert says there’s no doubt about its authenticity, and he dismisses claims of fraud as flat-out wrong.

The doubters have latched onto the idea that Adobe Illustrator — the premier program for computer graphic artists — “reveals” evidence of document manipulation in the Obama birth certificate. They note Illustrator reveals nine separate layers of the document, and claim it’s “proof” the file has been altered.

But that’s not so, says Jean-Claude Tremblay, a leading software trainer and Adobe-certified expert, who has years of experience working with and teaching Adobe Illustrator.

“You should not be so suspicious about this,” Tremblay told FoxNews.com, dismissing the allegations.

Related Links Obama Birth Certificate Moved to More Secure Location Months Ago

He said the layers cited by doubters are evidence of the use of common, off-the-shelf scanning software — not evidence of a forgery. “I have seen a lot of illustrator documents that come from photos and contain those kind of clippings—and it looks exactly like this,” he said.

Tremblay explained that the scanner optical character recognition (OCR) software attempts to translate characters or words in a photograph into text. He said the layers cited by the doubters shows that software at work – and nothing more.

[EvasiveManuever]

Additionally...

How could we find out what planes came from Kenyan in that month??

[American Constitutionalist]

Could this serial number be from another birth ? could they have used a birth certificate from another birth ?

[SteveH]

Fox “News” needs to vet its cheerleaders a little better.

Fox “News”, this headline should be: “Canadian Obama campaign volunteer Expert: No Doubt Obama’s Birth Certificate Is Legit.”

[BuckeyeTexan]

The registrars work for the DoH not for the hospitals.

[Tatze]

You’re saying that Obama had the actual physical certified copy that was on white paper and the reporters could look at it and feel the seal, make photocopies of it, take pictures, and post online the copies that they made? Is that what you’re saying? Is there a place where a reporter put that in an article?

Didn't ask me, but I would say yes. And many news organizations put the image in their reports.

[bluecat6]

See post #78.

Wahiawa General Hospital

[BuckeyeTexan]

The certified copies had the gree, thatched, security paper background. I don’t know anything about white paper. I’ll see if I can find the video report by the Fox News WH correspondent who reported that and waved his personal copy in front of the camera.

[Brown Deer]

I believe he spent thousands of dollars flying attorneys out to Hawaii as couriers. What they did in between, I do not know. But isn't it quite obvious to you, that something very fishy was going on?

That DOB and the SSN came from Obama Senior’s INS file. Yes, he obtained a SSN because he asked for permision to work part time to help with his expenses in Hawaii.

Back then there were a separate group of numbers for alien SSNs which had to go through a different type of processing before they were issued. The number he showed was not issued in Hawaii until 1960, but he first came in on the East Coast in 1959.

Why was he using two different dates of birth? Different documents in that file showed different dates of birth. It wasn't a simple mistake. It was planned. Go look again. Also you left out some very key evidence from that file. Explain more about his children, which are quite different on the various documents. In only one separate note do they mention Barack, jr. Also why was the name of his wife crossed out and then later replaced by Ann Dunham?

[Drawsing]

As I said on another thread...I scanned a document and saved it as a pdf. I then opened it in Illustrator CS5. Indeed it did have many layers. The scanning software did attempt to OCR the text...BUT it put all the OCR text behind the bitmapped image I scanned. I simply deleted that text and there were no more layers. None of the actual image was broken up into layers and there were no strange anomalies such as we see on the Obama certificate.

OCR'ed text is actual editable text in a computer font. I do not know of any OCR program that will break up a bitmapped image into bitmapped patchwork pieces.

[visually_augmented]

You’re saying that Obama had the actual physical certified copy that was on white paper and the reporters could look at it and feel the seal, make photocopies of it, take pictures, and post online the copies that they made? Is that what you’re saying? Is there a place where a reporter put that in an article?

Didn’t ask me, but I would say yes. And many news organizations put the image in their reports.

______________________________________________

That doesn’t make sense though. I would think it only makes sense that the green anti-counterfeiting pattern was added by the Hawaiian DOH. I think they copied the BC from a book (which created the rounded edge on the left) onto the green background and then added the stamp at the bottom. I expect this is standard practice in their office when providing “offical” documents to all requestors (not just the POTUS). Otherwise it would be trivial for people to modify documents themselves.

What purpose would the White House have for copying their document onto the green background paper??

[EvasiveManuever]

I submit the HI Dept. of Health sent nothing at all.

[Bouilhet]

I apologize for over-reacting. To many obots wanting to rationalize what seems to be either a) gross incompetence or b) a blatant “in your face” statement from the White House. Centering? Its doable. But why do it? I have 5 other copies of images of Hawaii LFBCs from the era that I trust are good. All are left justifed and obviously typed on a machine with pre-set tabs to match the form. Obama’s is the only one where there is an obvious centering in multiple fields. And the X’s that off the type line are another serious red flag. Again, I apologize.

No need to apologize, but apology accepted. I only wanted to make the clarification. The left-justification in the other images you referred to does seem the natural choice (just from the POV of administrative neatness), but centering or attempting to center is a pretty common way to fill forms, too. If we had a larger sample of BC's from this era, I wouldn't be surprised to find numerous examples of both. Also, it seems to me that trying to center the X's is actually consistent with trying to center the fields, and I would point out further that the centering in the Obama BC isn't exact and doesn't occur in all the fields. Of course, I'm far from an expert in typography, but I do use typewriters, and that's why I'm saying those particular points don't raise red flags for me.

[supercat]

Note that the last digit was scanned at a different resolution and contrast than the bulk of the document.

In a highly-compressed JPEG, low-contrast areas get severely pixellated (8x8 groups of pixels get turned into solid colors). Same picture, but different apparent resolutions. Something conceptually similar is happening here, though in a somewhat less severe form. Basically, the software to convert the scan to PDF converts parts as a high-resolution bitonal image and parts as a low-resolution color image. The last digit has slightly less contrast (it's impossible to tell exactly how much), so it gets rendered as part of the color image rather than the bitonal one. Note that the other digits probably had less contrast than apparent in the bitonal image, so the apparent contrast different may not be nearly as significant as it appears. Sometimes serialized forms are produced with a printing plate that has 10 or 100 copies of the form (depending upon size); the last two digits of the number could be part of the master plate. I don't know if that's true of the birth certificate forms used in Hawaii in 1961, but it's not a red flag.

[EvasiveManuever]

It is not a true copy.

And it is not a hospital birth certificate.

It is an abstract of a record in the Department of Health. And nothing more.

[Brown Deer]

the problem is that there is no accountability of what they were given. they have letters, were seen in Hawaii, and a couple days later 0bama had something, and that seemed to be rushed.

There was no urgency. He already waited three years. If there was an urgency, then overnight delivery would be faster, than an expensive attorney flying to hawaii, spending the night and flying back. Why did they need an attorney in Hawaii? Why did they spend thousands of dollars to go get it all of sudden?

[bluecat6]

I submit the HI Dept. of Health sent nothing at all.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Maybe. Or they sent what they had and it was damaging and it was swapped out in DC. Its hard to believe they would leave themselves exposed to a jail cell - no matter how deserving. So far they have seemed to put their toe on the line but not cross it blatantly. Even Schatz protected himself by not committing on the OCON in 2008.

[BuckeyeTexan]

All of your questions are answered by reading all 53 pages.

1) Obama was not granted permission to work part time until 1961, when he was in Hawaii. 1959 has nothing to do with it.

2) The INS caught Obama’s lies on his applications. They filled in missing information for him. There are three different versions of the same form.

I don’t see different dates of birth. Please give me page numbers.

[butterdezillion]

It doesn’t help that the person who requested these documents falsely states in the article that this “memo” (neatly labeled a “Memo”. lol) said Ann was planning to work at the university in the fall - when the “memo” actually said she planned to attend classes at the University of Washington.

An “error” that was a little too convenient at trying to walk on both side of the fence that is impaling Obama right now. It let most of the sleeping public think that the “Dreams” narrative was true (BHO and Ann happily married and living together in Hawaii until the baby was two, when Sr just couldn’t overcome the temptation to go to Harvard). But for those who are interested in the truth and would actually check the documents, the document was tailor-made to fit what the records we have so far have revealed - that Ann didn’t even live with Sr in Hawaii and actually took classes in Washington.

And the claims are tailored to seem as if they were reported by Sr himself, but they don’t fit what he would have said. He married a girl from Washington - but Sr had never known her from anyplace but Hawaii. Sr reported to this gal that he already had a wife in Kenya but hadn’t bothered to tell Ann that? And in an Aug 1962 document that Sr signed he only listed Roy Obama as his child(ren), even though he could have gained leverage in requesting an extension to stay in the US longer by claiming to have a son in the US.

And what kind of “advisor” was this anyway? An academic advisor? Why would a person report their home life to an academic advisor?

The whole thing seems very contrived to me. And the timing is very suspicious. Obama claimed in court that his BC would “embarrass” him. Fukino said his birth record was “half typed, half handwritten”. Abercrombie said it was “actually written down” and that what they have wasn’t likely to convince “people with a political agenda”. The HDOH indirectly confirmed that the BC was amended in 2006. Fukino referred to Obama’s “vital recordS (plural) verifying he was born in Hawaii. Miss Tickly was denied access to documents to support the claims on Obama’s birth certificate (among other things). All that points to something more in his file that is not noted on the BC as it should be.

And then, when everybody saw there was nothing embarrassing on the BC and so his objections make no sense - particularly when a decorated military surgeon had to go to jail for 6 months because Obama was too “embarrassed” to produce this thing - voila! Up pops this random INS document that was actually from an academic advisor giving no specific details about Sr but just about Barack Hussein Obama II but making an “embarrassing” comment (on cue) about Sr womanizing.

It’s too smart by half.

I’d like to see the actual FOIA request this reporter sent and how many months she had to battle Janet Napolitano over this, like all the rest of the people who requested documents. When did she send it in, and for what purpose? Why did she “misstate” what the memo said Ann’s plans were for the fall?

Another investigation begging to be done that never will be.

[Brown Deer]

Why are you defending 0bama’s BC?

[EvasiveManuever]

I know the answer, but I doubt the sheeple are willing to give up the remote and total entertainment to correct the problem.

Oh good. Then I don't have to tell you it is a False Opposition created to give you room in your cage, so you think you live in a free system. (see e.g. Beck, O'Reilly.) Just like the GOP is.

Carry on then.