Why all the nasty ad Hominem? My info comes from legal reading on the subject over the years. This is highly relevant to me because of my son. Your refutations of what I’ve said are nonsense; all I spoke of was that there are a few examples given that potentially could aid the USA canceling one’s citizenship, but often does not.
I agree that removing someone’s USA citizenship is done on an individual basis. Adam gadahn kept his for too long befre we finally got rid of him. That’s why I kept saying that it’s pretty damn hard to lose your citizenship.
I get what you are saying about Obama renewing an Indonesian passport as an adult — what exactly did he have to sign? Would be interesting to know. But. Renewal forms for the countries I’m familiar with do NOT ask anything about allegiance; they are simple forms for renewing an allegiance that was done prior.
I completely disagree with you about the American people. I think a commercial showing a depiction of Obama’s arm filling out a request for a foreign passport is absolutely an election killer. It’s not about whether it’s legal. It’s about not wanting our president to have clear foreign affiliations and to have proven such in writing.
I have nothing to say negative about you as a person. For all I know, you’re a great guy.
I am however citicizing your description of US law as it would apply to Obama’s situation as incomplete and inaccurate. You can’t just take situations you happened to have encountered personally and extrapolate it to Obama’s facts and circumstances.
I too would very much like to see Obama’s Indonesian records.
Indonesia (until recently) was quite strict about not tolerating dual citizenship. (Israel, by contrast, for obvious reasons, has been quite permissive in allowing Israeli citizens to hold foreign citizenship as well.)
If Obama as an adult physically present in Indonesia during the 1979-1985 period obtained a passport or a passport renewal from Indonesia claiming to be an Indonesian citizen, and it was the case that Indonesia did not allow its citizens to be citizens of any other country, then it is a pretty strong case that he necessarily intended to make allegiance to Indonesia and only Indonesia by voluntarily and affirmatively acting in that manner. As a US citizen, he was free NOT to obtain an Indonesian passport and use a US passport. But of his own free will he voluntarily obtained or renewed a status as an Indonesian citizen under circumstances where someone doing that would necessarily be understood as representing that he was NOT a citizen of any other country than Indonesia.
This assumes he did have an Indonesian passport, which I very strongly suspect, and that he did something when he was older to hold himself out as an Indonesian citizen such as renew a passport, which I also suspect. However, we do not know that as a fact.
In fact, to oversimplify a bit, I can boil the essence of the legal analysis down by analogy to a conversation.
Indonesia: “Only an Indonesian citizen can get an Indonesian passport from me. And if you are claiming to be an Indonesian citizen, you cannot be a citizen of any other country.”
Obama: “Hi, my name is Barack Obama. I would like to obtain or renew an Indonesian passport. I am claiming to be an Indonesian citizen. Therefore I am not a citizen of any other country.”
Uncle Sam: “Say, I was standing over there and overheard your conversation. On our records, you are a United States citizen. I just heard you state that you, as an adult and voluntarily, claim to be an Indonesian citizen and are not a citizen of any other country. By your statement you have made a choice of allegiance to Indonesia, and have forsworn allegiance to the United States. That is sufficient under my law to relinquish your United States citizenship.”