Professional Documents
Culture Documents
"horrible forgery"
By Israel Insider staff July 20, 2008
The purported birth certificate was published by the left wing Daily Kos blog
on June 12 in response to unconfirmed reports that Obama was not in fact
born in the United States (Canada and Kenya were suggested as the possible
locations of his actual birth). Since he would in that case not be a natural born
US citizen (his mother was not present in the US sufficiently long as an adult
to pass American citizenship on to him automatically), he would not be eligible
to be president. Israel Insider has followed the story in five previous articles
(the previous one here) and uncovered evidence, most recently, of admitted
forgery among Daily Kos bloggers, tolerance of electronic forgeries on the blog
site, as well as efforts by a blog administrator to conceal the admission of
forgery.
The latest examinaton of the purported documents is by far the most detailed
and technically sophisticated to date.
Atlas Shrugs publisher Pamela Geller reports that the expert analyst, who goes
by the screen name "Techdude", is "an active member of the Association of
Certified Fraud Examiners, American College of Forensic Examiners, The
International Society of Forensic Computer Examiners, International
Information Systems Forensics Association -- the list goes on. He also a board
certified as a forensic computer examiner, a certificated legal investigator, and
a licensed private investigator. He has been performing computer-based
forensic investigations since 1993 (although back then it did not even have a
formal name yet) and he has performed countless investigations since then."
The pseudonym was apparently inadequate to prevent
Techdude's identity from being exposed. He reports that
Perhaps the last week one or more persons "decided to track me
outspoken Israeli down and vandalize my car and hang a dead mutilated
press corps will be rabbit from my front door in a lame attempt to intimidate
able to do what me from proceeding with releasing any details of my
their fawning analysis. They did succeed in delaying the report by a
American few days but instead of deterring me they just really
counterparts have pissed me off. To their credit, if I had not taken a few
failed to do so far. days off from the analysis I would have missed the most
Obama's visit this damning piece of evidence -- the remnants of the
week to Israel will previous security border."
be an opportunity
to begin asking Techdude's detailed report, which runs more than 3000
the tough words and 20 pages with extensive magnified illustrations
questions -- and comparisons, reaches the following conclusion about
however the documented that was first published on the Daily Kos
unpolitically extreme left-wing blog and subsequently publicly
correct -- about endorsed by the Obama campaign, both in statements by
his apparently official spokesmen, and featured on its "Fight the
forged birth Smears" website. Here are some of conclusions:
certificate and
what that means "The (Daily) KOS image security border pattern does not
for his citizenship match any known specimen from any known year. It does
status and not match the pre-2006 nor does it match the post-2006
Constitutional certificate patterns. The placement of the text in all of the
fitness to be the pre-2006 and post-2006 certificates are almost identical
next leader of the pixel location matches while the image?s text placement
free world. does not match any known specimen from any known
year. The shape and kerning of the fonts used in the
2006 through 2008 certificates are identical while the
shape and kerning of the fonts used in the image does not match any known
specimen. The KOS image shows clear signs of tampering such as the
mismatch in RGB and error levels, visible indications of the previous location of
the erased security border, easily detectable patterns of repeating flaws
around the new security border, EXIF data that says the image was last saved
with Photoshop CS3 for Macintosh, and finally a technician from Hawaii who
confirms it just looks wrong."
The evidence, he says, allows for two possible scenarios by which the
document was fabricated:
"There are two obvious scenarios used to create the image that can be
ascertained from evidence. Either a real COLB was scanned into Photoshop
and digitally edited or a real COLB was first scanned to obtain the graphic
layout then blanked by soaking the document in solvent to remove the toner.
After rescanning the blank page to a separate image the graphics from the
previously obtained scan could then be easily applied to the blank scan after
some editing and rebuilding. It would also explain why date stamp bleeds
through the paper and the various bits of toner located around the image as
well as the remnants of the previous location of a security border."
The purported birth certificate was published by the Daily Kos on June 12 in
response to unconfirmed reports that Obama was not in fact born in the
United States (Canada and Kenya were suggested as the possible locations of
his actual birth). Since he would in that case not be a natural born US citizen
(his mother was not present in the US sufficiently long as an adult to pass
American citizenship on to him automatically), he would not be eligible to be
president.
After more than a month of controversy and demands that the Obama
campaign produce a paper birth certificate for analysis, this damning new
evidence raises the stakes for the democratic party and its front-runner.
Will Obama and his people continue to stonewall in the facing of the mounting
evidence of forgery, and provide paper proof of an authentic, original birth
certificate or even a genuine secondary Certificate of Live Birth? And will the
mass media and mainstream pundits -- which so far have hesitated to touch
the hot potato -- finally address the loaded issue of his possible unfitness to
meet the basic Constitutional requirement for a President?
Perhaps the outspoken Israeli press corps will be able to do what their fawning
American counterparts have failed to do so far. Obama's visit this week to
Israel will be an opportunity to begin asking the tough questions -- however
unpolitically correct -- about his apparently forged birth certificate and what
that means for his citizenship status and Constitutional fitness to be the next
leader of the free world.
This is the sixth of a series on the purported Obama birth certificate. Here's
where you can find Part 1, 2, 3 4, and 5.
Other articles about Barack Obama are linked on the upper left of this article.
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---
Lie:
Obama Is Not a Natural Born Citizen
Truth:
Senator Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961, after it became a state on August
21st, 1959. Obama became a citizen at birth under the first section of the
14th Amendment
"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the
jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein
they reside...."
---
Contrary to the campaign's claims, the issue of when Hawaii became a state
and the wording of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, are not at
issue.
Rather it is Article Two, Section One of the Constitution which requires that
the President be a "natural born citizen" and not simply a naturalized citizen.
The issue is whether there is proof that Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961,
the legal status of his mother at the time, and what exactly is written on the
original birth certificate -- if it in fact such a certificate exists.
Some bloggers have claimed that the purported official State of Hawaii
document, originally published by the radical left Daily Kos blog, is a fake,
and a poorly executed one at that.
Even if one or two of the above irregularities may have an explanation, they
claim, the aggregate points to an amateurish attempt to manufacture an
official-looking document that may not exist in the official records of the state
of Hawaii.
On its face, this document does not even presume to be a copy of the original
birth certificate -- contrary to the claims of the Obama campaign -- but rather
a secondary Certification of Live Birth, which may be used when the original
birth certificate can't be located, and can be produced after the fact with just
the affadavits of a family member, or even the child himself.
The Obama campaign, however, has not even produced a paper version of this
document, and indeed it does not even publish the high resolution version that
appeared on the Daily Kos. It has not fulfilled the media's persistent requests
to produce the original Birth Certificate, or to respond to media questions
about the birth certificate controversy.
What could be the Obama campaign's motive for withholding the original birth
certificate and passing off instead a crudely forged facsimile of a "Certification
of Live Birth"?
Jim Geraghty, reporting on the Campaign Spot blog of the National Review and
one of the original writers on the controversy, cited the "rumor" that
Obama was born not within the United States, but elsewhere, possibly Kenya.
Geraghty stated that "If Obama were born outside the United States, one
could argue that he would not meet the legal definition of natural-born citizen
-- because U.S. law at the time of his birth required his natural-born parent
(his mother) to have resided in the United States for '10 years, at least [f]ive
of which had to be after the age of 16.'"
He then points out that Ann Dunham, Obama's mother, was 18 when Obama
was born "so she wouldn't have met the requirement of five years after the
age of 16."
Geraghty said the Obama campaign could "debunk" the rumors about his birth
simply by releasing a copy of his birth certificate, but the campaign has so far
chosen not to do that.
One would have thought that the most basic documentary proof of the location
and date of his birth should be a basic and non-controversial requirement for
any presidential candidate, and part of the public record, much more so than
one's tax return or annual checkup. It is almost incomprehensible that they
would withhold this information -- unless there is something to hide.
"McCain was indeed born in the Canal Zone, and Article II of the Constitution
plainly states that 'no person except a natural born Citizen... shall be eligible
to the Office of President.'
"Some might define the term 'natural-born citizen' as one who was born on
United States soil. But the First Congress, on March 26, 1790, approved an act
that declared, 'The children of citizens of the United States that may be born
beyond sea, or outside the limits of the United States, shall be considered as
natural-born citizens of the United States.' That would seem to include
McCain, whose parents were both citizens and whose father was a Navy officer
stationed at the U.S. naval base in Panama at the time of John's birth in
1936."
But the issue is not legally closed, and therefore this year, as reported in the
legal column of the Wall Street Journal a non-binding resolution was
introduced and passed affirming that McCain qualifies as a "natural born
Citizen," as specified in the Constitution and is therefore eligible for the
highest office in the land. Ironically, the resolution was co-sponsored by
Barack Obama.
About McCain, of course, there is no question about the facts surrounding his
birth, but over their legal significance. He is not denying that he was born in
Panama, or posting certificates that claim he was born in Florida. Obama's
campaign, on the other hand, seems intent on evading the need to produce
and submit to public scrutiny the official document that could prove that his
qualification to run for President according to the Constitution.
Validation for the authenticity of the image is provided by a reporter for the
St. Petersburg Times, who reportedly emailed the image and got a
confirmation from an official in the Hawaiian Department of Health. "It's a
valid Hawaii state birth certificate," spokesman Janice Okubo is quoted as
telling the reporter.
Israel Insider is checking into this report and will report back on its findings.
The "birth certificate" claimed by the Barack Obama campaign is not certified
as authentic and appears to be a photoshopped fake.
The image, purporting to come from the Hawaii Department of Health, has
been the subject of intense skepticism in the blogosphere in the past two
weeks. But now the senior spokesman of that Department has confirmed to
Israel Insider what are the required features of a certified birth document --
features that Obama's purported "birth certificate" clearly lack.
The image became increasingly suspect with Israel Insider's revelation that
variations of the certificate image were posted on the Photobucket image
aggregation website -- including one listing the location of Obama's birth as
Antarctica, one with the certificate supposedly issued by the government of
North Korea, and another including a purported photo of baby Barack -- one
of which has a "photo taken" time-stamp just two minutes before the
article and accompanying image was posted on the left-wing Daily Kos blog.
That strongly suggests that Daily Kos obtained the image from Photobucket,
not the State of Hawaii, the Obama family, or the Obama campaign.
Photobucket is not generally known as a credible supplier of official vital
records for any of the fifty states, and the liberties that other Photoshoppers
took with the certificates confirms this.
The failure of the Obama campaign to do so, and its willingness instead to put
up an invalid, uncertified image -- what now appears to be a crude forgery --
raises the dramatic question of why the presumptive Democratic presidential
candidate might have to hide.
Until now, it has been thought that there might be some embarrassing
information on the real certificate: was the candidate's name something other
than Barack Hussein Obama II, as it is claimed? Was no father listed because
of the uncertainty over Obama's paternity? Was his father's race listed as
Arab, or Muslim, rather than African? These revelations might be
embarrassing, and further undermine his credibility, but he could disavow and
downplay their significance. Would revealing such embarrassment outweigh
the far greater risks involved in perpetuating a palpable forgery, or passing off
an uncertified official document as being certified?
There is one possibility, however, which alone might justify the risk that
Obama and his campaign seems to be taking in putting forward the uncertified
document image: Obama was not in fact born in Hawaii and may not be an
American citizen at all, or at least not a "natural born citizen" as the
Constitution defines the requirement for the nation's chief executive. Real
original birth certificates, circa 1961, have all kinds of verifiable information
that would confirm Obama's origins, or throw them into doubt should they be
lacking.
Research has since uncovered the law, in force at the time of Obama's birth,
that were he to have been born in another country, his young American
mother's youth extended time abroad would not suffice to make him a
"natural born citizen." Even if he were naturalized later -- and there is no
evidence that he was -- he would not be eligible to run for the office of
president and -- if forgery or misrepresentation were involved -- he and his
staffers might find themselves facing stiff federal and state charges.
But if, at this late date, Obama has no proof of being a US citizen by law,
natural born or otherwise, then he or his advisers may be tempted to try to
"tough out" the allegations about his "birth certificate" or the lack thereof. He
and his campaign have gotten through other embarrassments: maybe this one
will go away, too.
But now the State of Hawaii has dashed those hopes by clarifying that a
certified birth certificate must have an embossed seal and signature, features
his claimed birth certificate image lack.
The longer Obama waits, the graver grow the consequences of waiting.
There is one simple way for the candidate to clear up the issue once and for
all: produce for public inspection and objective analysis the paper copy of his
original Hawaiian birth certificate -- if one exists. If he's lost the original, he
can request a certified copy. Ordinary citizens are required to produce one to
get a passport or a driver's license. Surely it's not too much to ask from a
man who aspires to hold the highest office in the land.
If proof of citizenship does not exist, then surely it would be wiser to admit it
now.
Because if Barack Hussein Obama II does not produce definitive proof of his
"natural born" American citizenship with original, verifiable documents, he will
be setting the stage for a very public battle over his personal credibility, the
basic legitimacy of his candidacy, and its possible criminality.
UPDATE 6/26:
Janice Okubo, in response to an Israeli Insider question on Tuesday, would not
confirm nor deny whether she had told a St. Petersburg Times reporter
whether she had said the birth certificate was "real", citing the statutory
stipulation that "Hawaii state law (HRS !338-18) prevents disclosure of
information contained in vital statistics records except to those people who
have a direct and tangible interest in the record as defined by statute." This
would, however, seem to negate the propriety of any disclosure by her of
confidential information.
Jim Geraghty of The National Review Online, following up on this Israel Insider
report, said he had contacted Okubo:
"I spoke to Ms. Okubo late Wednesday afternoon, and she said she had seen
the version of Obama's certificate of live birth posted on the sites. While her
office cannot verify the information on a form without the permission of the
certificate holder (Obama), she said "the form is exactly the same" and it has
'all the components of a birth certificate' record issued by the state. In other
words, she sees no reason to think the version posted on Obama's web site
and Daily Kos is not genuine."
"The 'embossed seal' in question is, she said, probably on the back of the
document provided to Daily Kos, but not visible (as in another certificate
posted on Israel Insider for contrast). She thinks the difference in visibility can
be attributed to the pressure used when applying the seal."
Indeed, Okubo confirms to Geraghty that the image is lacking the "embossed
seal" (and the official signature) that are required for the certificate to be
valid. While "she thinks" that the difference in visibility might be attributed to
varying "pressure," she admits that she does not know and has not seen
the original.
Contrasting the purported Obama image with the DeCosta sample, it is hard to
imagine the embossed seal and signature being of such light pressure that
they would become completely invisible. An inked date of June 6, 2007, in
reverse, does come through. But in any event, Okubo's confirmation that the
premsumptive birth certificate is lacking the required stamps makes it all the
more imperative for Obama to release the original paper certification, the only
valid kind, and not an easy-to-photoshop electronic facsimile thereof. It
should not be hard to produce, since Hawaii provides for family members to
request them.
Even though Geraghy notes that Obama "initially refused to provide his birth
certificate," he has suggested that it is "rather unlikely" that Obama was born
in Kenya, since it would require that the candidate and his family do a lot of
lying. In fact, there were reports of Kenyati relatives claiming he was born
there, and there is the mysterious disappearance of his grandmother, who
may indeed know something about this subject.
After all, being born in Hawaii is part of the "family legend" and it would be
unreasonable to expect this to vary from interview to interview, especially
when a non-Hawaiian birth would invalidate Obama's run for the presidency.
It is indeed hard to believe that Obama could have gone through his life
without having to prove that he was an American citizen. But the credulity
with which the mainstream media has automatically accepted as valid the
image that appears on the radical left Daily Kos blog and on the Obama
campaign's polemical "Fight the Smears" website makes it clear that many
have been unwilling, now and in the past, to demand proof of an authentic
document. They prefer to accept on faith that the candidate or his campaign
would not lie about such a thing, assuming he has nothing to hide and no
motive to lie.
But until the certified paper birth document is produced -- either by media
pressure or a legal challenge in any state -- the fact remains that Obama has
not proven that he is a "natural born citizen" eligible to be President according
to the Constitution.
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Barack Obama has claimed in writing to have a valid printed document: In the
first chapter of his book Dreams From My Father, describing his origins, he
wrote about finding a local Hawaiian newspaper article about his Kenyan
father: "I discovered this article, folded away among my birth certificate and
old vaccination forms, when I was in high school."
So where is that birth certificate? It got lost? The dog ate it? No matter.
Barack Obama or an immediate family member can plunk down $10 ($11.50 if
he orders online) and have Hawaii mail a certified document to him within a
week or two. But more than two weeks have passed since the Obama
campaign adopted the suspect, uncertified image of a purported birth
document published by a left-wing blog Daily Kos, and nothing certified and
nothing on paper has since has been forthcoming. Nor has there been any
official comment about the issue from the campaign. They may cling to the
hope -- however audacious -- that the one issue that could disqualify their
man constitutionally from gaining the presidency will just go away.
Amy Hollyfield of the St. Petersburg Times, and a reporter for the paper's
"Politifact" blog, said that she has been seeking the birth certificate "for
months." She was frustrated: "Hawaii birth certificates aren't public record.
Only family members can request copies, so when the campaign declined to
give us one, we were stalled."
Finally, the campaign released the image (resembling the one at the top of this
article). Hollyfield e-mailed it to the Hawaii Department of Health, which
maintains such records, to ask if it was real.
Israel Insider contacted Okubo several days. She could not refer to Obama's
specific case, she said, because no one but an authorized family member can
do so. But she did confirm that a valid "certification of live birth" would need
to have an embossed seal and signature and that it can only be printed and
mailed. There is no such thing as an electronic only certification.
Maybe so, but all the certificates we have seen have the embossed imprint
clearly visible, as well as horizontal fold marks.
We got an email yesterday from Bryan Suits who has a
radio show on KFI Los Angeles. He writes:
There's only one "I have just received my State of Hawaii certified birth
way for Obama to certificate for my 1964 debut on the planet earth. It
show he's a looks....nothing like Obama's. We've scanned it at 72dpi,
natural born 300dpi. Nuthin. We can't make the emboss disappear.
citizen eligible to Also, we can't make THE FOLDS disappear!! How did
be President: FightTheSmears do it?
produce the paper
proof. I got curious when I compared his (with the 2007 date
bleed) to my old beat-up1986 copy. then I went online
on June 13 and ordered the thing. It got here yesterday
tri-folded in a state of hawaii envelope. I called the State and asked if I could
get an unfolded copy. No dice.
Hollyfield brings up other issues that her readers raised, although she does not
address them or explain them [bracketed comments from Israel Insider]:
Isn't the date stamp bleeding through [in reverse] the back of
the document [image] "June [6] 2007?" (Odd since it was
supposedly released in June 2008.)
They don't check about the embossing requirements of the State of the
Hawaii. They believe Obama. Why should they doubt him, certainly after he
becomes a lawyer and a state senator? The officials believe that the claimed
document is authentic, and therefore issue other documents, based on the
phony one, buried deep in the documentary chain. Unwitting or not, however,
the high stakes for basing one's citizenship on an uncertified birth certificate
must be pretty obvious to the campaign now.
Nothing else explains why Obama's campaign refused to release the original
paper document, to make this distracting controversy go way. Because
Hollyfield is right about one thing:
"If this document is forged, a U.S. senator and his presidential campaign have
perpetrated a vast, long-term fraud."
U.S. citizens who have written to Israel Insider or have posted on the Internet
are not satisfied. Ordinary people are compelled to produce certified paper
birth certificates to get a passport or a driver's license. Why, people are
asking, doesn't Obama needed to show one to run for President?
Okubo says she got a copy of her own birth certificate last year and
it is identical to the Obama one we received. [Well, "identical"
cannot be correct. Her name is not Obama, Her certificate number
was not blacked out, and her certificate had the required embossed
certification. So she can only be saying that the form looked the
same, as she said to the National Review Online's Jim Geraghty.]
Still, she acknowledges: "I don't know that it's possible for us "to
even say beyond a doubt what the image on the site represents."
And there you have it. Okubo can't "even say beyond a doubt what the image
on the site represents" because she is not allowed access to Barack Obama's
personal records. State law prohibits it.
Only Barack Obama (or another immediate family member) can authorize the
release of the paper birth certificate, and submit it to objective analysis. He
refuses to do so, even though it would seem to be in his interest to do so, to
silence the skeptics, to show that they are wrong and he is right, to settle
once and for all that he is a "natural born citizen" entitled by the US
Constitution to be President of the United States. Yet there is only silence and
inaction from Obama and his campaign on the subject. The palpably
uncertified document remains online, with an explanation that refers only to
the date of Hawaiian Statehood and an irrelevant passage from the
Constitution.
And there's the rub. It is possible that Obama conspired his way to
the precipice [sic] of the world's biggest job, involving a vast
network of people and government agencies over decades of lies.
Anything's possible.
If Obama is confident that he has a valid paper birth certificate from Hawaii, it
is unreasonable for him to be withholding it.
But if he lacks a valid US birth certificate, and therefore cannot prove that he
is an American citizen, then he would have good reason to put up a
smokescreen and stonewall as long as he can. He would have good reason to
try and slide by, as he may have done in the past, by putting up something
that would pass as legitimate to the untrained and uninformed, as the one
posted by the left-wing Daily Kos blog did, and which much of the media
accepted as such, on his say-so.
Because if Obama lacks a valid birth certificate from Hawaii, it would mean
that he has been living a lie his whole life: an illegal alien born outside the
country who never obtained American citizenship, never became naturalized,
and yet has been passing himself off as a citizen to the Illinois Bar, the Illinois
Legislature, the US Senate and now, as a candidate for President.
To give Obama the benefit of the doubt: he may not know that he was not
born in Hawaii. This may also be part of the family legend his mother
communicated to him. As he himself admits in the first chapter of his Dreams,
this would not be the only half-truth or outright life his white family told him.
The chapter skips over completely anything about the circumstances of his
birth or what preceded it: "First the baby arrived, eight pounds, two ounces,
with 10 toes and 10 fingers and hungry for food." Subsequent reports have
him born in two different hospitals.
Has Obama -- by the "white lie" of claiming to be born in Hawaii (whether the
lie came from him or from his mother) and not Kenya or Canada as some
have a suggested -- been misrepresenting himself -- wittingly or unwittingly --
to the people of his state and his nation all along? If it is unwitting, it is tragic.
If it is witting, it is criminal.
Either way, knowing the potential damage of this revelation, he would have
every reason to put up a web site accusing his critics of conducting a smear
campaign to avoid answering valid questions about his identity and
background. He would have every reason to accuse political opponents of
planning a campaign that raises these questions -- as if to ask whether a
candidate for US President is in fact a US citizen is an illegitimate question.
To this day, the question about Obama's national origins remains unanswered,
because the proof offered to date is inadequate, even according to the
responsible Hawaiian state officials.
The question is not whether he's black or white or somewhere in between. The
question is not whether he's a Muslim or Christian, a Democrat or a
Communist. The question is whether he can document that he was born in
Hawaii and thus meet the requirements of the Constitution.
Yes, the question about whether the candidate is a natural born American
citizen is legitimate. But is Obama?
There is one loophole that may yet qualify Obama as natural-born, even if he
could not prove he was born in Hawaii: the fact that his mother was US-born.
"A child born abroad on or after December 24, 1952 and before
November 14, 1986 to one U.S. citizen parent and one non-citizen
parent can acquire U.S. citizenship at birth if the U.S. citizen parent
can demonstrate that he or she was physically present in the United
States for a minimum of ten years, at least five of which were after
the age of fourteen, prior to the birth of the child." Because Barack's
mother -- born November 29, 1942 -- bore him at the age of 18 years, eight
months plus, she could not possibly qualify for the five year requirement. (A
subsequent law reduced the five years to two, but only for children born after
1986, and made provisional retroactive exceptions favoring parents serving in
the military or for international organization. Neither applies to Obama).
Thus the bottom line is this: If Obama can't prove he has a certified Hawaiian
birth certificate, he's not a natural born American. If he's not a natural born
American, he can't be president. That's the law of the land.
This is a matter of US national security. Because there are people in this world
who know the truth and can prove it. They would be able to hold that
knowledge and proof over his head to make him do their bidding, or else
expose him as a fraud, liar and, yes, an illegal alien. That is not a risk that it
is reasonable for the American people to take.
There's only one way for Obama to show he's a natural born citizen eligible to
be President: produce the paper proof. If there's a seal and a signature, no
problem, he qualifies.
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The blog entry, posted by the site founder Kos (Markos Moulitsas), is
presented as a response to a request by Jim Geraghty of the National Review
Online, who had, three days before, called for the Obama campaign to
release the candidate's birth certificate:
So Kos aka Moulitsas goes out and gets one. One impressed commenter on
the site asks Kos where he got it. He answers:
"I asked the campaign. This 'journamalism [sic] thing actually works
sometimes."
But why would a presidential campaign that has its own "Fight the Smears"
website rely on a radical left-wing blog like Daily Kos to post its official
documents, especially one as sensitive and controversial as a birth certificate?
A few days later the Obama site would post a very low resolution, barely
legible image -- it still is there on the site, with no reference to the one first
posted at the Daily Kos.
Yet the service of Daily Kos to the Obama campaign raises some questions:
Who in the campaign would be authorized to release a personal document of
Barack Obama's birth certificate? Was it a paper document that they sent to
Kos to scan, or did the Obama campaign scan the original and send it to Kos?
If so, why not just post it on the Fight the Smears site? Or is there another
possible source for the document? There is no documentation of the
provenance of this image, from whom and why it was transmitted to Daily
Kos, and in which format. None, that is, except for the say-so of Markos
Moulitsas, who said he simply asked the Obama campaign for it.
The perceived unreliability of the image has provoked petitions and widespread
demands for Obama to submit for objective inspection the paper versions of
the "birth certificate" he claimed in his book Dreams from My Father was in
his possession, as well as the paper version of the Certificate of Live Birth for
which the image on the Daily Kos and the Obama "Fight the Smears" website
was supposedly generated.
Without a valid birth certificate, the primary record of US birth, Obama cannot
prove that he fulfills the "natural born citizen" requirement of the Constitution,
throwing into doubt his eligibility to run for President and throwing the race
into turmoil. His presumed Kenyan-born father was foreign-born, and his
mother was too young at the time of birth to confer natural born status by
virtue of her American citizenship. Thus his citizenship comes down to proving
he was born in the USA, and his campaign has staked its credibility on the
authenticity of the Daily Kos-derived birth certificate image. (These aspects of
the case are covered extensively in the previous article in this series.)
Jay McKinnon ask opendna, who says he is 25-30 years old, operates a
website called opendna.com and uses the opendna screen name on various
web sites and blogs, including his comments and diary on The Daily Kos. In
recent years he has divided his time between Long Beach, California and
Vancouver, British Columbia. He is a Democratic political activist, frequent
contributor to the left wing Daily Kos blog, and a fervent Barack Obama
supporter.
Both images lack two salient characteristics present in the Barack Obama birth
certificate images claimed by the Daily Kos blog and Obama's "Fight the
Smears" site. The Field under CERTIFICATE NO is blank whereas on the
purported "Obama birth certificate" that area is blacked out as if to conceal a
real number. In addition, the two documents posted to the opendna account
lack the reversed date (June 6, 2007) that appears at the bottom of the
purported "Obama birth certificate."
However, the ISLAND OF BIRTH and the HOUR OF BIRTH is identical on the
"Haye I.B Ahphorgerie" and blank certificates as well as the purported "Obama
birth certificate," which also claims 7:24 pm as the HOUR OF BIRTH and Oahu
as the ISLAND OF BIRTH. The odds of an identical time occurring by chance in
two certificates is 1440 to 1. Either the former is derived from the latter, or
the latter is derived from the former.
Given that this is an official state document, the risks of altering and
tampering with it, or offering it for the express purpose of creating a forgery,
or promoting it on a website, would seem to be rather high for fun and
games.
The second possibility is that the blank document preceded the purported
Obama birth certificate, serving as a "master" for the other. Either one would
find a "blank document" and fill it in, or one would scan or photograph an
authentic document and then "clean it" to create a blank document that would
be filled in with personal details and the necessary stamps and signatures. One
might be inclined to leave in type for two rows for alignment purposes and to
ensure that the font type and size are consistent. Later one would fill in the
blank areas with the desired data and "authentic" markings.
Indeed, the document image was initially posted with a resolution of 1024 x
1000. Only later, after it was discovered that the document stamp and official
signature were lacking from the document image, Kos replaced the image with
the much higher resolution in which it is claimed that, after a series of
complex image manipulation steps using special imaging software, a faint
image of something the website claims is the missing seal appears. (Even if
there is a seal, it's not clear it's a seal from an Obama birth certificate, and
there is no visible registrar signature, which is also required for a certified
document.) But it is impossible to make out with the naked eye, and the
manipulation is illegible and useless for verification purposes.
A possible answer for some of these anomalies is provided in banter between
opendna and other commenters in the discussion thread of the blog post.
And sure enough, there in the comments stream, he provides the "almost
blank" Hawaii birth certificate image that appears on his Photobucket account,
with just the information for the island and hour of birth. Of course, it's absurd
to include a Hawaii birth certificate for John McCain, but what's striking is the
availability of a "blank template" as McKinnon calls it.
The next commenter is impressed: "why can't Geraghty find this stuff? (but
bloggers like you have it at thier fingertips? No wonder print media is in total
collapse."
Now, as the time stamps would have it, opendna's suggestion is out of synch,
appearing 4-5 hours after the initial posting of the purported Obama birth
certificate document. That doesn't make much sense: Kos doesn't need a birth
certificate for Obama -- one was already posted!
So why would OpenDNA post this? What explains his suggestion that Kos
"print one up" with a "blank template"? Is he just trying to be funny? Is he
trying to impress the other commenters? For this did he go through the
trouble of removing all the text and the reverse date-stamp? Or was the blank
template "just lying around somewhere" on his computer or in some corner of
the Internet, just happening to have the identical information as the purported
Obama birth certificate?
A hint may be found here (click the image to open one in higher resolution):
"Corvo", a very frequent commenter on Daily Kos, had written at 10 am: I'm
sure that every forgery includes a note that essentially says "Hey! I'm a
forgery!"
At 01:27:12 PM PDT, some three hours later, under the subject "!!!" and
without any further comment, OpenDNA posts a crop of his Haye I.B
Ahphorgerie image.
It is certainly worthy of note that the "Haye I.B Ahphorgerie" image and
comments were subsequently excised from the discussion thread, something
that could only have been done by a site administrator or Kos himself.
However, the management failed to clean up in the site archive from where
these images were pulled and, as of this writing, is still publicly accessible.
The suppression of the comments indicates that one or more persons at Daily
Kos were involved in the attempted cover-up.
None of this is not to imply that McKinnon himself forged the Obama
document, with all the fields filled in with information about the presidential
candidate but lacking the visible stamp and signature that alone would make it
an authentic document. Nor is their proof positive about how the almost-blank
"Oahu 7:24pm" document is related to the one endorsed by the Obama
campaign that features those exact details.
The presence on the Daily Kos blog of the admittedly forged almost-blank
templates of the document, and the admission of forgery by opendna in that
same blog entry, should cause the Obama campaign to reassess its reliance
on the image of the birth certificate published by the Daily Kos.
Yet the Obama campaign, three weeks later, continues to run a derivative of
the Daily Kos posts, and insists on its authenticity while refusing to submit any
paper proof of birth for official or independent inspection, as if proof of
Constitutional fitness to serve is of no consequence.
In the summer of August 2006, blogging on the Daily Kos, opendna aka Jay
McKinnon showed off his DHS-derived knowledge, discussing under the
heading of "The Perfect ID Card" the ease of forging US documents, birth
certificates in particular:
"Most Americans have worse ID than illegal immigrants. So, you
have a letter from a notary that says you told him you're a citizen.
Is that supposed to mean something? I'm certain he would sign
one saying I told him I'm a carrot. Birth certificates, are you
serious? Take a look at yours. Chances are I could counterfeit it at
Kinkos."
This is Part 4 of a series. Here's where you can find Parts 1, 2, and 3. Other
articles about Barack Obama and his mysterious background are linked on the
upper left of this article.
Join our cool new (N)Obama Club, where you can stay up to date with
constantly updated videos, photos, and news streams about Barack H. Obama
and discuss him in infinite depth and detail with other fans and critics.
In a rambling interview with the Daily Kos -- the blog site that published
the supposedly authentic Barack Hussein Obama birth certificate and his own
birth certificate manipulations in the same June 12 post, Jay McKinnon, aka
opendna, says he manipulated the Obama birth certificate to create a blank
Hawaii birth certificate as a "template," supposedly for a John McCain birth
certificate. But he says it was not an attempt at deception but a "lame joke"
that he now regrets.
While that conclusion echoes and strengthens the calls of those who have been
demanding that Obama provide paper proof, McKinnon undermines his own
credibility from the get-go when he claims that he first encountered the
Obama birth certificate issue "around June 12, 2008" when "As I recall,
someone sent me an email containing two images. One of the Decosta birth
certificate and the other from Fight The Smears. The subject line was 'Birth
Certificate Appears to be "Invalid."
The only trouble with that statement is that McKinnon had already created the
blank Hawaii birth certificate template for John McCain and the "Ahphorgerie"
joke on June 12 before Fight the Smears had even published the birth
certificate. Kos had published it that morning, about four hours earlier. Patricia
DeCosta's birth certificate surfaced in the blogosphere only a week later, on
June 19. So how did he compare the documents? And why would he say it
was the first he'd heard of the birth certificate controversy when he had
already posted his own patently fake certificates.
In any case, McKinnon says, comparing two images to determine the validity
of one or the other is a patently ridiculous task: "It was a kin [to] comparing
two photocopies of dollar bills to determine if one of them was counterfeit."
There's another oddity. The Fight the Smears image is a low-resolution image
which has been proved to be derived directly from the Daily Kos scan. The
former would have been useless for McKinnon to look at. So why didn't he
look at the Daily Kos scan instead, which he had to know was the source for
what appears on Fight the Smears? It doesn't make any sense.
His explanation of the blank template is even more convoluted. "I made
another joke about people making allegations of fraud: If people are allegedly
faking birth certificates for Obama why shouldn't they fake one for McCain? In
fact, why shouldn't both Senators be born in the same place at the same
time? I would have left the date of birth in but it was too late to UNDO. Again,
I thought it was self-evident what I'd done, how I'd done it and that the
motivation was satire. But like I said, they weren't very funny jokes."
Anyone who cares to read the comment thread can see this is a lie. No one
was making allegations of fraud at this time: Daily Kos had just published the
"real thing" just hours before. They were having fun, showing the Dead Sea
scrolls as McCain's birth certificate and other cheap shots. McKinnon is
projecting this into the past to rationalize his own suggestion: "Why don't you
print one up for him? Here's a blank template." He was just having fun. And
while McKinnon may claim that no one took it seriously, the real point is not
whether his blank template could be used to create a passable paper
document but whether that blank template may have been used to create the
birth certificate image file of Barack Hussein Obama, as the Daily Kos
produced that very day, and the very same day that McKinnon produced his
fakes.
Clearly it could have been, by the exact same technique
that McKinnon used: stripping one birth certificate and
"It should be self- adding new text for the desired data. We carefully did not
evident that a accuse him of doing this, but as he proves, supposedly
JPEG of a scanned with Microsoft Paint (!), it would have been easy enough
official document to do it. (It's still not clear why he went to all the trouble
cannot be valid." to make his "lame joke" or why a document specialist
Jay McKinnon, DHS- with extensive accounts at Photobucket and Flicker is
trained document using Microsoft Paint.)
specialist and
Microsoft Paint The dubious origins of the BHO birth certificate on the
power user Kos site, without a logical explanation other than that the
Obama campaign provided it, strengthens the likelihood
that the so-called birth certificate was produced in a similar way, and then
"adopted" by Fight the Smears. The process of using Daily Kos as a
production and publication facility is beyond irregular, especially given the
highly tendentious content on that site, including most recently its promotion
of fake press passes.
McKinnon was asked: Weren't you worried someone would download your
images and make fake birth certificates? "Not in the slightest. Anyone who
tries to pass off a forgery from those JPEGs deserves the jail time they get.
(Again, my respect to Hawaii's Department of Health: they've done a
commendable job.)"
"I believe a reasonable person would conclude that the intent was satire,
humor or virtually anything but fraud. Furthermore, I am confident in ability of
11 and a half out of 12 human beings to distinguish between an image on a
computer screen and a physical, printed, stamped and sealed government
document (no matter how poor the quality)."
Here, too, McKinnon puts forward a red herring: the issue isn't whether
someone is going to use his JPEGs to produce a phony paper birth certificate.
Of course it was clear that "Haye I.B Ahphorgerie" was a lame attempt at
humor. The issue is whether McKinnon or someone else at Daily Kos used a
blank template of a Hawaii birth certificate to create one for Obama. The fact
that McKinnon, who prides himself on being so much smarter than everyone
else, or at least 11 and a half out of 12, doesn't seem to address that issue
only adds to the sense that he is being disingenuous and concealing the real
timeline of events.
So how does McKinnon justify his belief that Obama is "natural born"? By the
fact that he used a passport! But how did Obama get his passport? By
producing, one presumes, a birth certificate. So where is it? Why is such a
problem to produce it? Why should the wannabe President play hide-and-seek
with the prime Constitutional requirement for a US President?
Another McKinnon joke? Perhaps. But I am not sure Markos Moulitsas will find
it amusing.
But to bring things full circle, let's come back to another lame joke by
McKinnon, a comment from June 28 with the surprising title: "Obama's not a
citizen, and I prove it." He writes:
Let's look at the applicable law, shall we? The Immigration &
Nationality Act, Section 301(g) [8 U.S.C. 1401]:
"a person born outside the geographical limits of the United States
and its outlying possessions of parents one of whom is an alien,
and the other a citizen of the United States who, prior to the birth
of such person, was physically present in the United States or its
outlying possessions for a period or periods totaling not less than
five years, at least two of which were after attaining the age of
fourteen years;"
The Immigration and Nationality Act of June 27, 1952, 66 Stat. 163, 235, 8
U.S. Code Section 1401 (b). (Section 301 of the Act). "Section 301. (a) The
following shall be nationals and citizens of the United States at birth: "(1) a
person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof; ...
"(7) a person born outside the geographical limits of the United States and its
outlying possessions of parents one of whom is an alien, and the other a
citizen of the United States, who prior to the birth of such person, was
physically present in the United States or its outlying possessions for a period
or periods totaling not less than ten years, at least five of which were after
attaining the age of fourteen years.
So my earlier quote and argument stands, and McKinnon's attempt to prove
Obama is a natural born citizen by virtue of his mother US citizenship goes the
way of his other lame jokes. It's one thing for a document specialist to use
Microsoft Paint, but if you're going to be lazy in your research, at least don't
be so smug about it.
Once again we get to the main point, that even those who are inclined to
believe that Kos of all the blog sites in the world had access to the paper
Obama birth certificate and faithfully scanned it. If Obama has the proof of his
Hawaiian origin, now is the time to produce it. Because the legal standard, let
alone skeptical public opinion, isn't going to be satisfied by what appears on
Daily Kos, because even the DHS-trained document analyst says what
common sense and Hawaii statutes tell us -- a JPEG image has no legal
validity. Obama's eligibility to be President thus hangs on a thread: the need
to prove he has a valid paper Hawaiian birth certificate, signed, sealed and
delivered.
With all due respect to those who claim that they have "busted" the image
analysis of one or another of the birth certificate blogger-skeptics, powerfully
joined most recently by "techdude" on Atlas Shrugs (which previously
rejected the fake birth certificate thesis) they are missing the point.
Yesterday the National Review Online, which got this whole thing rolling with a
request for Obama's birth certificate, a request supposed fulfilled by Daily Kos,
weighed in again for the first time in weeks:
It's unlikely that this time Jay McKinnon's excuse of "lame joke" will pass
muster for Barack Obama.
This is the fifth of a series on the birth certificate. Dear Obama campaign, can
you please produce a paper birth certificate so that we can return to our
regular beat? Here's where you can find Part 1, 2, and 3 and 4. Other articles
about Barack Obama and his mysterious background are linked on the upper
left of this article.
Join our cool new (N)Obama Club, where you can stay up to date with
constantly updated videos, photos, and news streams about Barack H. Obama
and discuss him in infinite depth and detail with other fans and critics.
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Comments
Yes, but was it a fake tatoo?
One of my commenters noted that the border was suspect, but your analysis is the first detailed breakdown I've seen.
I had written a few days ago, having found what I thought to be the seal and a signature block, that the issue might be resolved:
http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2008/06/obamas-birth-certificate-issue-resolved.html
But, as you have ably pointed out, it indeed may not be.
I would caution all who jump on the Obama-Birth Certificate bandwagon that may still turn out to be a trap or dead-end. Obama's
campaign produces a real BC and blames the scan on yet another "staffer" who gets thrown under the bus.
Let's not forget to keep attacking the policy differences, Obama's amazing contortions (some would call lies), and business-card sized
resume!
Best, Doug
The seal and signature block area are there, as you and I and others have detected. And the date the certificate was produced (Jun
2007) as well.
Clearly the person who stamped and signed the back did not use the same pressure as the date stamp, but they are all there. What you
need is another original certificate of the same format, as this guy does with the same uneven corners.
At least someone confirmed my find that the Opendna documents are modifications to the Obama certificate because of two tell tale
laser printer dots (see here). Sadly, this only proves Opendna printed out the document and rescanned it at a higher resolution so that
photoshop could do its work better.
It does not prove the certificate is a fake. If you want to prove it is a fake ask the state of Hawaii! Ask Obama to show the certificate he
has to Hawaii! This is so much wasted energy - and it makes the conservatives look foolish.
has to Hawaii! This is so much wasted energy - and it makes the conservatives look foolish.
You better have more than this to make a claim of forgery.
Regards, AJStrata.
It's called a JOKE Kobi, as in S-A-T-I-R-E. Look it up. (It helps if you look at my satirical graphic of the birth certificate too).
Pam is a character, too, albeit a colorful, funny, and sexy one. And one of my favorite characters on the net.
Stogie
when and how is this birth certificate issue going to be properly and legally resolved? can't it be taken to court?
Posted by: kobi | Saturday, July 05, 2008 at 11:22 AM
To me the first question is, where did the Senator's mother live when he was born? If in Hawaii, then he would be a native citizen of
the U.S. All the biographical information seems to indicate that Senator Obama's mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, was in Hawaii
attending the U. of Hawaii when she met his father, Obama, Sr. The second question is, if the birth certificate online is a fake, which it
appears to be, why go to that trouble? The suspicion that naturally arises is that there is something the Obama campaign doesn't want
the public to know, or why not end this problem right now by simply producing an authentic birth certificate. Something definitely
seems out of place.
Posted by: Sonny | Saturday, July 05, 2008 at 12:53 PM
AJ, we've been asking. Repeatedly. Lambert even submitted a request under the Freedom of Information.
All these damn questions. Of course folks are guessing. It's like we're blind and they've moved the furniture.
WHY FORGERIES?
Well of course, that was the point of my analysis which seems to have been lost on a few individuals. Both certificates are printed with
the OHSM 1.1 (Rev. 11/01) LASER identifier with the revision dates being identical [11/01]. If there was a new or modified certificate
security pattern introduced there would also be a different revision date indicating that it had been revised after November 2001.
Some people are apparently under the mistaken impression that the security border printing will just change once and a while or
perhaps some folks may just never really understand the issue. As consistency and precision are the keys to spotting forgeries it is
extraordinarily unlikely – perhaps even to the point of impossibility - that the revision numbers would be the same while containing
different “certificate patterns”. As anyone who has worked at a bar can even tell you there are official guide books handed out by
liquor control officials that list what is and what is not found on official state issued documents – and high security documents do not
vary from week to week or printer to printer. Israel Insider has already posted on his/her blog that a Hawaiian official had already
been contacted about the document and that particular Hawaiian official could not very them as authentic based on the image. I
simply wanted to figure out for myself (and to humor my friend) if there was truly anything suspect. At first blush I did not believe
there was.
Let’s quickly review how a paper certificate may come into existence. A Certificate of Live Birth, just like any other high security paper
document, is almost always first printed on blank specialized paper stock using an offset press to create the base images. The raw
paper stock itself may even contain UV reactive micro fibers or security threads. This printing process would generally include the use
of special color shifting inks and micro engraved or repeating security patterns such as the ones visible on the Decosta certificate. That
process is, of course, not done at the Registrar’s office but at a professional printing house. The ancillary information, such as the
child’s name and date of birth, would be later printed onto the pre-printed security stock, which was received months or years earlier
from the print house and kept in secure storage until needed, at the time it is requested at the Registrar’s office. This is typically done
by running the pre-printed security stock through a laser or thermal wax printer and perhaps even the occasional typewriter. Take for
example commercially available yet low security blank check stock which is run through a home laser printer using an accounting
application which fills in the blanks. The micro security border and color shifting background were already pre-printed by the
application which fills in the blanks. The micro security border and color shifting background were already pre-printed by the
manufacturer and the user is only using their laser printer to add the ancillary information.
Now let’s get a bit silly for a moment shall we? Let’s all pretend the certificates were changed by proxy and no one bothered to modify
the revision number. Stranger things have happened in government. But our dream world comes crashing down once we actually look
at the structure of the images themselves and perform an error level analysis on the underlying graphics.
In the interest of fairness, and well before I even bothered to post my original comment, I also took into account that the security
border may have been printed on a laser printer…perhaps even one running out of toner…and only the background security pattern
existed beforehand. But then I performed an error level analysis on the KOS Obama and Decosta certificate images. [For an easy to
understand paper written for general non-geek audiences on error level analysis see
http://www.htcia.org.hk/artman/uploads/2_3_digital_imaging_forensic__v4_.pdf ] Doing the error level analysis using several
known error rates revealed some immediate disparities in the KOS image such as the border floating as a “layer” on top of the
background. Further the border appears to consist of several distinct parts and individual sections which were pasted together. [To
make your lives easier here is a link to a WIRED article which explains a bit in relation to what I am referring to -
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/08/researchers-ana.html ] The compression and error ratio of the security border simply
does not match the rest of the certificate. The same can be seen with the text. However the same analysis of the Decosta image using
the same exact methodology instead verified the compression and error levels are consistent with equal distribution throughout the
document. [Screen captures are also available – but the output created by the analysis are 17MB each…not really made for posting put
if Pamela wants them she is always welcome to them :) ]
The bottom line is that if the document was simply scanned into a computer and was not created on, or substantially modified by, a
computer there would not be as many variations in the compression and error rates as can be seen in the KOS certificate. Taking the
error level analysis into account along with my other findings (such as the obvious cut and paste marks, the glaring errors in the size
and count of the security diamonds, and the lack of consistent header and footer start and end point) is how I arrived at my
conclusion. None of this can simply be explained away or ignored by people claiming that this is a different un-recorded revision since
no one has been able to produce another real certificate that matches the security engravings of the KOS version but there have been
numerous reports and sightings of real certificates matching Decosta’s. I believe the Israel Insider blog has links to a few of them.
Occam's razor then forces this issue to a point – the simplest answer generally being the correct one – if there are multiple documents
that appear to contain similar security engravings of the Decosta version but no others that resemble the KOS image - the KOS
document is a forgery. As others have already repeatedly asked – why would Obama’s webmaster post a fake (or even a suspected
one) on the “fight the smears” website? – I have no clue and do not really have an issue with it – they may not even know it is a fake.
That was not a goal nor included as an aspect in the analysis of the graphics presented. But as I said before, it is with a high degree of
scientific certainty that I must conclude that the KOS Obama image is a pretty bad counterfeit.
Just to touch on the remaining issues raised with the “Opendna versions”. While I am bit busy with a few cases this week and next
(the rent is not going to pay itself) and I do not have time to look into their details – others may want to use a hex editor or an
application such as JPEGsnoop to create a timeline of the EXIF data and time stamps for all of the known versions, including the KOS
version, to create a basic event line to see if the chicken or the egg came first. Deeper analysis by comparing segmented digital
signatures (such as partial MD5s) may also reveal statistically identical areas rather than just relying on the naked eye. Just my 2
cents. And on a final quick thought (as I really must get back to the lab) the specifications for the layout and the details of the security
features of a real Hawaiian Certificate of Live Birth may be obtainable with a sunshine law or FOI request.
Can this entire issue be a simple "bad scan" of a real document - not likely. But as others have said it is better to look into other more
important issues (but it would be nice to have him present a real document to settle the nagging resident alien question since even I
have to come up with an original certified birth certificate just to renew my own driver's license next month - why should he be so
special? I wonder when his license expires.)
There are websites that say Obama was born at both the ‘Kapiolani Medical Center’ and ‘Queen's Medical Center” he couldn’t have
been born at both.
KAPIOLANI MEDICAL CENTER:
The English version of Wikipedia says Obama was born August 4, 1961 at the Kapiolani Medical Center.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama
The Italian version of Wikipedia says Obama was born (4 agosto 1961) at the Queen's Medical Center: “Barack Obama nacque al
Queen's Medical Center di Honolulu”
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama
Ancestry of Barack Obama, About.com says, Barack Hussein OBAMA was born on 4 August 1961 at the Queen's Medical Center in
Honolulu, Hawaii
http://genealogy.about.com/od/aframertrees/p/barack_obama.htm
This site Familypedia: The Genealogy wikia, gives a detailed listing of Obama’s geneology all the way to his great-grandfather x10.
They say he was born at Queen's Medical Center
http://genealogy.wikia.com/wiki/Barack_Obama_(1961)
So was he born at ‘Kapiolani Medical Center’ or ‘Queen's Medical Center’? There is the possibility that he was born on a military base,
since his mother Ann Dunham’s father signed up for World War II after Pearl Harbor, and her mother went to work on a bomber
assembly line, and after the war, they studied on the G.I. Bill. Maybe their daughter had her child on the military base, which is not
considered US soil and therefore to be a “Natural Born Citizen” both Barack’s parents would have had to be US citizens, which they
were not, and if only one was, Ann would have had to be a US citizen for at least 10 years with 5 of those years being after age 16,
since she was only 18 she did not qualify her son.
There is a rumor circulating in journalistic circles that Barack Obama was born in Nairobi Kenya when his mother and father were in
Kenya on a visit and that his parents returned with the infant who was then registered in Hawaii.
Apparently, examination of the hospitals' records in Hawaii have shown no birthing records for Ann Dunham Obama even though
there is a registry of the birth in the public records office a week after his date of birth it does not show his place of birth.
Perhaps she visited her friend in Mercer Island as a stop over from Kenya on route to Hawaii to register her son. In Hawaii one could
apply for a "Late" Certificate of Birth.
The Certificate of Hawaiian Birth program was established in 1911, during the territorial era, to register a person born in Hawaii who
was one year old or older and whose birth had not been previously registered in Hawaii. The Certificate of Hawaiian Birth Program
was terminated in 1972, during the statehood era.
"Who is Eligible to “Apply for Late Registration? As provided by law (HRS §§338-15, 338-29.5), the following persons may apply for
late registration: Any person born in Hawaii who is one year old or older and whose birth has not been previously registered in
Hawaii, or that person's parent, guardian, next of kin, or older person acting for that person and having knowledge of the facts of
birth may request the registration of a late certificate of birth.” What I find curious is under the law you can apply for one of these
years after the birth as long as someone has knowledge of the facts of birth. After reading this I am wondering if Obama was really
born in Hawaii if all that was needed was his mother’s say so. He could have easily been born in Kenya, brought back to the US and
applied for a LATE Certificate.
http://hawaii.gov/health/vital-records/vital-records/latereg.html
You do not have to be a Natural Born Citizen to receive a passport or a driver’s license; you can be a naturalized citizen and just
because Obama filed with the Federal Election Commission does not mean he showed his Birth Certificate. The FEC does not require
candidates to file birth certificates in order to run for office.
http://www.contrariancommentary.com/
http://strata-sphere.com/blog/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=5652
Sorry, but checkmate. Don't waste your time and credibility unless you have a way to prove this is not simply a new security-enhanced
background in answer to the Real ID Act of 2005. Otherwise your house of cards has collapsed.
Cheers, AJStrata
So far you have not done this. You have been showing possible, but highly implausible, reasons this might be a forgery. Until you
exclude all reasonable scenarios that would support this being valid, you have not shown even within reasonable doubt that this is a
forgery. So far all I have seen is possible, but highly improbable!
Posted by: AJStrata | Sunday, July 13, 2008 at 12:38 PM
AJStrata, what you fail to understand, time and time again, is exactly what I've said.
Your hypothesis is that the so-called "Kos image" is a true and faithful copy of an original, PAPER DOCUMENT.
My first hypothesis says, with 100$ certainty, that the Kos image is NOT a true copy of a laser-printed paper document.
In fact, the Kos image is a copy of a copy.
For starters, a direct copy would not have a black bar obscuring the Certificate Number. May I direct your attention to the caveat:
The EXif information in the Kos image indicates that we are looking at a COPY of a scanned image that was altered by Photoshop.
The inconvenient truth is that we were NEVER shown the original scanned image.
Oh, BTW, the uncropped dimensions of the original scan were 2546 x 2388, and not 2427 x 2369.
Since the Kos image is NOT the originally scanned image, we can truthfully say that we have NEVER seen the actual copy of his COLB.
If a person wanted to post the originally scanned image, except for the Certificate Number, it would have been child's play to place a
small rectangle of paper over the number, and hold it in place with a smidgen of removable Scotch tape.
In this way, a true copy of the original paper document could have been made, but it wasn't.
Gotcha! I could stop right here because you, AJ, have staked your reputation on the Kos image being a true scan of the original
document, and I just knocked that curve ball right out of the park.
Since you, AJ, have not seen the original scanned image, you cannot know, with any degree of certainty, that ONLY the Cert. No. was
blacked out.
PLUS, AJ, you cannot claim to know what was the SIZE of the original scanned image. It could have been larger than the size of the
Kos image, and you would never know it.
"Inspection of the files shows consistent anti-aliasing across all letters and images (e.g., the state seal in the middle). Consistent anti-
aliasing across the document tells me this was induced when the document was originally printed - not from later manipulation.
Polarik mistakes this anti-aliasing feature with forgery, which is completely ridiculous"
I know what anti-aliasing is, and I did not equate it with forgery, nor does it have any bearing on what I said about the textual pixel
patterns found in the Kos image.
Now, when you claim that everything we see in the Kos image is a direct result of the anti-aliasing fonts used to print the original,
then that claim is ridiculous because I have four different COLBs that I know are genuine copies (one of which is Pat DeCosta's) and
none of them show any of the patterns that you claim are due to anti-aliasing.
I also have in my possession, a direct image of a recently-printed COLB, circa June 30, 2008, and it looks nothing like the Kos image,
especially in the borders.
The borders on the Kos document look blurry and smeared, by comparison.
If the Kos image is so high in quality, then why are there no black pixels in the criss-cross lines of the border? I can clearly see black,
criss-cross lines in the other COLB borders (except for Smith's which has matching dark green pixels) but, there isn't a single, black
pixel present in the criss-cross lines on the Kos image. In fact, there are several missing lines, or parts thereof, in the border that
should have been printed.
The text in the Kos image is black and clearly legible. The seal in the Kos image is black and clearly legible. The rectangle is black and
clearly legible. The title and caveat text boxes are black and clearly legible.
Yet, the borders in the Kos image are blurry and contain nothing that a color wheel would call, black. There are only faint, dark shades
of gray.
And, you're trying to tell us that this is the "new" border used on COLBs?
My second hypothesis, in support of my first hypothesis, says that the patterns I found around and between specific groups of letters
in the Kos image are not due to laser printing, not due to anti-aliasing fonts, not due to resizing JPGs, and not due to changing a JPGs
compression factor.
In short, they are not the result of anything that you, AJ, said they were.
I've scanned thousands of multi-colored documents and patterned paper that were printed by a laser, reducing their image size and
file size by 30 percent or more, and none of them had pixel patterns around the text that resembled those I found on the Kos image.
If you think that you could recreate the Kos image simply by scanning a paper COLB, then I'll bet you that you cannot do it.