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Was Obama's "Certificate of Birth" manufactured?
Blogtownhall ^ | 6/20/08 | Polark

Posted on 06/17/2008 6:00:53 PM PDT by freespirited

 

Was Obama's "Certificate of Birth" manufactured?

Posted by Polarik on Friday, June 20, 2008 12:00:00 AM
The Daily Kos blog has posted a JPG that allegedly is Barack Obama's "Certificate of Birth." From a detailed analysis of the image and the text, it looks like it was created by a graphics program, and is not a true copy of an original, certified document.

I've been working with computers, printers, and typewriters for over 20 years, and given a set of printed letters, I can discern what kind of device made them. Printer output is quite different from the text created by a graphics program, and even if a document looks "official," it may not be.

The "Certificate of Birth," which I will call "COB," is posted on the Kos website as a color JPG. The reason for making it a color JPG, IMHO, is to induce the viewer to believe that this is a genuine copy of an original document -- something that a black & white, or even greyscale, reproduction would not convey as well.

Basically, anyone could have produced this document on his or her own computer, and I'll tell you why.

As represented by the JPG, the "original" COB seems to be a sheet of paper measuring 8.09" x 7.90" with a green "Rattan" pattern embedded in, or printed on, the paper and a "Bamboo mat" pattern for its border:

Photobucket

At the bottom of the JPG image, reading right from left, one can see following text:

OHSM 1.1 (Rev. 11/01) Laser     This copy serves as prima facie evidence of the fact of birth in any court proceeding. [HRS 338-13(b), 338-19]

There are a lot of problems with this statement, foremost of which is that the text in this document were produced by a graphics program and not a laser print, or any other printer, for that matter.

If the letters were made by a laser printer, you would be able to see the background, the pattern, through the spaces of the letters.

Here's a genuine copy of a real certificate of birth -- my own:

Photobucket

When text is entered via a graphics program, the pattern cannot be seen without noticeable distortion. However, when text is entered with a computer printer or typewriter, you can clearly see the pattern below the letters.

Here is a segment of the COB showing the letters, "Certificat" (from the "Certification" field) enlarged about: 500%:

Photobucket

Now, let's enlarge it some more:

Photobucket


The fuzzy outline is a dead giveaway that these letters were made by a graphics program. Also a dead giveaway is that the letters still retain a sharp outline. With printed or typed text, there is a clearly definable characteristic of a symmetrical shadow when the image is saved at a lower resolution,  that is, a more compressed JPG file.

Here is the word, "Certification," from my certificate of birth enlarged :

Photobucket

As you can see, there is virtually no distortion and no pixelation around the letters, and no dropouts from the background. The most noticeable pixelation and dropouts from the background can be seen in the Barack's father's name "HUSSEIN" on the COB:

Photobucket

Take a look at the area between the "S's in "HUSSEIN."  No hint of any background color. Plenty of grey and white pixels -- exactly what would result from enlarging text entered with a graphics program.

WAIT, there is an even bigger red herring here. All of the type on this document was produced by the same program.

Whatever made the text for all of the headings also made the text for all of the entries.

What's wrong with that?

Well, only that real certificates are created ahead of time by a commercial printer, or, at least, a different printer than the one used to create the data entries. This is why the headings on my certificate of birth look entirely different than the entries.

That is questionable by itself. But it is the way the text looks that gives it away.

Any text made by a typewriter, laser printer, or even inkjet printer, would NOT have the smeared, black & white pixels underneath it -- there would be several pixels bearing the same color as the paper, nor would the left side of the letters be clear and free of any artifacts or shadows. Scalable type produced by a graphics program will look about the same regardless of the magnification with a minimal or uneven staircase pattern of pixels on its sides, whereas printed text -- even laser text -- will show a clear, uniform staircase pattern of pixels on both sides of each letter that proportionately increase in size with magnification.

Here are some examples:

Here is the "Certificate" heading from Barack's COB enlarged 5 times:

Photobucket

Virtually all of the letters lack any shadows, and only the "A" and the "R" show only a slight, uneven staircase effect. Basically, the letters would look essentially the same -- especially letters made from straight lines like "I," "E," and "T," regardless of the magnification used to view them, and this is a key feature of scalable type produced by a graphics program.

Now, here is the "Certification," heading from my genuine certificate enlarged 5 times:

Photobucket
 
The double shadow appears on all letters, and this shadow grows proportionately in size as the letters are enlarged. Also, there is pronounced staircase effect on the "C," "A," and "R." Notice, too, that the "steps" are uniform in size, in contrast to the uneven staircase effect on the Barack headings.

Again, the most glaring anomaly in Obama's COB is the following:

All of the letters that appear on Barack's Certificate of Birth were made, at the same time, and by the same method -- which was the use of a graphics program and not the use of any printer.

You can also tell that this is an obvious Photochop by looking at the border patterns.

Looking at the corners of the darker green border, you can see that the border is discontinuous. In other words, the vertical border bars were made by drawing a long rectangle, copying that rectangle, and then overlaying each of them on either side:

UPPER LEFT CORNER OF BORDER

Photobucket


LOWER RIGHT CORNER OF BORDER


Photobucket

What is readily apparent is that the top and bottom horizontal border bars are overlapped by the top and bottom edges of two vertical rectangles.

If this certificate was a professionally-made, there would not be any overlaps, or any outlines of the side rectangles -- the border would appear to be one, continuous whole. Note, too, that both the left and right side rectangles are equal in length. It appears that they were made that way ( or cloned) to make the patterns line up.

Now, getting back to statements on the certificate, there is something else clearly wrong with the "OHSM 1.1" statement at the bottom -- besides the fact that it was produced by a graphics program. There should have been that distinctive "double S" mark preceding the Section number of the statute -- , as in §338-13 --  so as to indicate that a reference is being made to a particular section of a statute, which, in this case, is Chapter §338, Section 13.

As for the first part, the acronym, "OHSM," stands for "Office of Health Statistics Management," which is not the responsible office within the Department of Health for issuing a certificate of birth. The "1.1" that follows refers to a non-existent document. If there were a "1.1", it would mean a revision of "Form 1" or "Document 1," and since "Document 1" is the form for a "Marriage Certificate," "OHSM 1" would refer to a Marriage Certificate form, and "OHSM 1.1," would refer to another version of that Marriage Certificate form, rather than a "Certificate of Live Birth" form.

Also, in this line, there is a reference to "HRS Section 338-13, paragraph (b)" which states, "Copies of the contents of any certificate on file in the department, certified by the department shall be considered for all purposes the same as the original, subject to the requirements of sections 338-16, 338-17, and 338-18."

OK...so where is the certification by the department?

Not only is there no department certification, there is also the absence of any watermark on the paper. Official state documents are supposed to have a watermark on the paper -- like my certificate of birth -- especially when that document is a very important one, like a certificate of birth.

A certified document must have a signature (or signatures) from individuals within the State's Department of Health who are authorized to reproduce the document, and to certify that the document is genuine.

Nothing like that appears anywhere in this JPG.

Also, the official Seal of Hawaii in this JPG is a 2nd generation, black & white bitmap copy of the original seal -- at best.

Photobucket

You would think that the seal would be in color, like the original
Photobucket
or at least a higher quality reproduction if this was a copy of an original document.

In short, there is nothing in this copy to indicate that it is, in fact, a "certified copy."  As I have shown above, there is a whole lot of evidence that it is a manufactured copy. There certainly is a very strong motive for creating one.

Unless the voting public is given a real birth certificate to examine, the question of Barack's birth is still up in the air.


TOPICS: Politics/Elections; US: Hawaii
KEYWORDS: birthcertificate; certifigate; kos; obama; obamafamily; obamatruthfile
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To: muawiyah

I don’t really understand why you would ping someone else? Do you need support in your shouting down the discussion here? I really don’t have a clue why you responded to me in the first place. You had nothing to add to this discussion other than an unsourced claim this had previously all been sorted out. I frankly don’t care if you think it is sorted out as I have tried to make clear.


301 posted on 06/18/2008 11:28:12 PM PDT by JLS
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To: JLS

Hawaiian birth certificates in 1961 were black with white print. This style was through at least November 1968 at Kapiolani Medical Center (and at all Hawaiian hospitals). See http://www.homegrownhawaii.com/boards/thread.aspx?tid=184&group=HH, which is a website where Hawaiians indicated which hospital they were born and described what their birth certificates looked like.

There is a report in 1968 that another style of Birth Certificate was being used, such as was described in this article. Green, but with black type and a statehood seal. But given the timeframe of Obama’s birth, 1961, his birth certificate would have been black with white print, the style used by all Hawaiian hospitals at that time. The copy shown in this article was definitely not a copy of the original.


302 posted on 06/19/2008 1:36:24 AM PDT by LS51
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To: Bluebird Singing

I was named II at birth.


303 posted on 06/19/2008 3:01:32 AM PDT by Fundamentally Fair (When all you have is a kitty, every problem looks like a troll.)
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To: LS51; cahome
cahome: I agree with both of your posts. There are some on FR who want Obama to win it seems. And as with any Dim presidential nominee, Obama is unvetted. He needs to be fully vetted as all GOP nominee are including looking at his past and looking at his present views.

LS51: Thanks for the information. That certainly makes it sound like the author of this thread is correct about that .JPEG not being real. Of course possibly Obama was born at a hospital using non-standard forms, but that remains to be seen.

To both of you: Doesn't it just seem odd the Obama campaign has not released an official copy of his birth certificate. It is such a simple thing and it would end any speculation about what it says. I don't see that it could contain anything important enough to be worth hiding?
304 posted on 06/19/2008 9:59:31 AM PDT by JLS
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To: Aurorales
I have an original Hawaiian BC from 1968. (I know that Obama’s document is not original)

The “race” of the baby or parents was not asked or documented on the Birth Certificate. My Father tells me he was not asked either, while giving the info for the BC.

My sister was born in Hawaii 4 years earlier, and she tells me it is not on her BC either.

So again I ask, why would this info be on his replacement? My answer is this is not a real document and the info was added to this to show that he always was considered African American. There probably is a document somewhere, which lists him as some other race.

I know it doesn’t matter, but it obviously matters to someone responsible for producing this document.

Thanks for the feedback.

We needed to hear from people who have seen or had actual Hawaiian birth certificates before figuring these things out, so your input takes us a lot farther down the road than we were at first.

The next step is whether you know somebody born about that time who's gotten one of these new computer copies. If "race" isn't listed on that, then Obama has some explaining to do.

305 posted on 06/19/2008 10:00:44 AM PDT by x
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To: x
The next step is whether you know somebody born about that time who's gotten one of these new computer copies

I would change my mind on the forgery issue if a 1961 Hawaii-born person requested a copy from the State and received something substantially different.

I doubt it, but it's possible.

306 posted on 06/19/2008 11:25:25 AM PDT by Jim Noble (Cut the birth certificate crap! It's the communism, stupid!)
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To: Red Steel

It’s possible that this was printed, border, background and all, on blank paper even if it did come from the State of Hawaii.


307 posted on 06/19/2008 11:56:47 AM PDT by RockinRight (I just paid $63 for gas. An icefield in Alaska is NOT the Grand Canyon. F--- the caribou.)
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To: The_Reader_David

Damn! I thought we really had ‘summit’ here. A June suprise, while we await the October revelation. Keep working folks, it’s important.


308 posted on 06/19/2008 12:19:12 PM PDT by Eighth Square
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To: Jim Noble

Why wouldn’t proof of eligibility be a requirement to get on a ballot? So that means, technically, the GOP could knowingly run Arnold S. and then force the democrats to wait until after the election to sue?

Obviously that is a bad example because everyone knows Arnold wasn’t born in the US. But take Bobby Jindal. Let’s assume a couple of people knew he wasn’t born in the USA, but moved here when he was one...and for some reason the public didn’t know etc etc. There is no mechanism to “apply” to run for President? So unless someone bothers to ask, after the fact, there is no mechanism to deal with such a scenario?

Interesting.


309 posted on 06/19/2008 12:35:21 PM PDT by Crimson Elephant
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To: Crimson Elephant
There is no mechanism to “apply” to run for President?

No, there isn't. Nor should there be. You don't VOTE for a candidate for President on Election Day, you vote for a slate of Electors for President and Vice-President of the United States.

Once THEY are elected, they assemble in your State capital or other designated place, and then THEY vote for a Presidential candidate.

I cannot even imagine a Constitutional mechanism to act against someone who was trying to get his electors elected.

In fact, I think the only way a Court in its right mind would even THINK about a writ would be to stop, or to forbid, the inauguration of a Constitutionally ineligible person, and this would almost certainly not happen until the night of January 19, 2009.

310 posted on 06/19/2008 12:50:39 PM PDT by Jim Noble (Cut the birth certificate crap! It's the communism, stupid!)
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To: JLS
It's an open discussion board. The other person was "pinged" because I was directing the message to him yet notifying you that I was talking about you behind your back.

This is FR courtesy. BTW, every authorized user is allowed to comment on every post in a thread whether the poster likes it or not.

311 posted on 06/19/2008 12:57:22 PM PDT by muawiyah (We need a "Gastank For America" to win back Congress)
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http://genealogy.about.com/od/vital_records/p/hawaii.htm

Hawaii state law limits access to birth records of 75 years or less to the person named on the certificate, the parents, descendants, spouse, legal guardians and individuals who share a common ancestor (i.e. cousins, grandparent, aunts/uncles) with the person named on the certificate. Birth records more than 75 years old are open to the public.


312 posted on 06/19/2008 1:06:06 PM PDT by syriacus (Democrats got THEIR "change" in Election 2006. Are WE better off now?)
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To: x

But if the question of race was not asked at the time of birth. My father tells me in 1964 and 1968, when giving the info for the Birth Certificate of myself and my sister, he was not asked the race of himself or wife or the baby. And, like I have stated before, it is not on our Birth Certificates.

(And yes, I understand I am talking about 64 and 68. Not 1961. But things probably couldn’t have changed that much)

So, unless when he requested the replacement document, they asked him some new questions, then again I ask, why is it on the new document????


313 posted on 06/19/2008 1:09:21 PM PDT by Aurorales
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To: Aurorales
Someone posted the birth certificate of a person born in 1930 here. It does give the "race" of the parents, but it looks as though the registrar took the parents at their word. If they said "White" he or she wouldn't write down "Caucasian" or vice versa or even make the races of a White and a Caucasian parent the same. So if the parents said "African" they most likely wouldn't change it to "Negro" or "Black" or "colored."

I don't know when the birth certificates stopped listing race, but a lot happened in the sixties so far as race and color were concerned. At some point in the 1960s states may have stopped requiring this information -- or they may have continued to keep track of the data for statistical reasons but kept it off of birth certificates and other legal papers issued to the public.

314 posted on 06/19/2008 2:50:44 PM PDT by x
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To: NathanR

No. My wife used a City of New York ‘Certification of Birth’ to get a passport and its only ‘raised seal’ was intaglio printing used in the border, and the signature was printed as part of the background, and it was most assuredly not a certified photocopy of the document issued at the time of her birth. My daughter used a ‘Copy of Record of Birth’ from Massachusetts, a rather ratty document typed on a form that was printed (in the 1980’s) on an ordinary printing press, with a raised seal generated by clamping the paper, to get a passport.

Unless you are aware of a distinction *under Hawaiian law* between a ‘Certificate of Live Birth’ and a ‘Certification of Live Birth’, the difference in terminology is irrelevant, as for that matter how it was printed. Massachusetts used an ordinary printer, New York City a big fancy intaglio printer. If Hawaii wants to print the background with a fancy color printer, then print the text on with a laser printer, rather than type it on, or even print the whole lot together on a color laser printer, the different custom is within the rights of the several states. If Hawaii wants to call them ‘Certifications’ rather than ‘Certificates’ (after all Massachusetts calls them ‘Records’) that also is irrelevant.

Okay, Hawaiian FReepers, does Hawaii really have two different classes of documents, one of which is called a ‘Certification’ and is somehow less valid for purposes of proof of citizenship than the other, as NathanR avers, or does Hawaii simply call what Masschusetts calls a ‘Record of Birth’, or even a ‘Copy of Record of Birth’ a ‘Certification of Live Birth’?


315 posted on 06/19/2008 5:11:37 PM PDT by The_Reader_David (And when they behead your own people in the wars which are to come, then you will know. . .)
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To: LS51

Not really a relevant point. New York City won’t give you a copy of your original birth certificate either. You get a new nicely typed document on a pink and blue intaglio printed background with the registrar’s signature printed as part of the background.


316 posted on 06/19/2008 5:14:12 PM PDT by The_Reader_David (And when they behead your own people in the wars which are to come, then you will know. . .)
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To: JLS

Actually, if his mother lost the original, it may not be a simple thing to get a copy of the original. Indeed doing so may be a violation of Hawaiian law.

As I have pointed out, some juridisctions, New York City being one, do not release copies of the documents generated at the time of a birth, but only respond to requests for birth certificates by issuing a new document reflecting the facts of the birth as maintained in the relevant county’s or municipality’s records. (In the case of New York, the document is called a ‘Certification of Birth’, and contrary to some posters erroneous ideas is considered adequate proof of U.S. citizenship by the State Department for the issuance of passports.)


317 posted on 06/19/2008 5:20:06 PM PDT by The_Reader_David (And when they behead your own people in the wars which are to come, then you will know. . .)
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To: Dutch Boy

Are you questioning the integrity of Lucy Ramirez?


318 posted on 06/19/2008 5:26:29 PM PDT by Lonesome in Massachussets (Hillary to Obama: Arkancide happens.)
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To: The_Reader_David
For some reason that I don't quite understand, I have become something of an expert on this. Hawaii has two types of documents. One is the Certificate of Live Birth and the other is the Certification of Live Birth, which Obama “provided”.

Here is a previous post of mine on this subject: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2032572/posts?page=263#263

The link in the post points to a Hawaii Government website which talks about the two at length.:
http://hawaii.gov/dhhl/applicants/appforms/applyhhl

The website goes into what documentation would be needed to be able to “homestead” in Hawaii.

319 posted on 06/19/2008 5:41:10 PM PDT by NathanR (Obama: More 'African' than 'American'.)
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To: Lonesome in Massachussets

I didn’t know she was involved. I haven’t paid that close attention to this story.


320 posted on 06/19/2008 5:43:37 PM PDT by Dutch Boy
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