Nonsense. PDF vs. Adobe CS files are irrelevent. Straight scans are one layer, by definition, because they're bitmaps with no innate object definitions. The only way to get multiple scan layers is to do multiple scans, and even then they aren't going to segregate themselves by subject matter, since all the scanner sees is undifferentiated bitmap data.
If you have scan layers, without or especially with subject matter content differentiation, you have deliberate assembly, which in this case means tampering, because the document has no structural justification for anything other than a straight scan.
I am a butt open novice compared to most with Adobe...but I have done enough to know that a scan is a flat scan...OCR be damned. This was last minute, shove it through forgery by some extremely smart people who want to keep it alive or extremely stupid aids...still do not cannot fathom which.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2711500/posts?page=33#33 Scanning a document to a PDF DOES CREATE LAYERS! I'VE DONE IT!
It’s not nonsense: you’re simply ignorant of the tools.
If I were to scan and clean my Ohio birth certificate using Photoshop and Illustrator, it would turn out with all the same layers and variations displayed in the copy being presented to us by the White House.
I’ve done exactly the same thing with documents and photos, as have tens of thousands of graphics designers and editors around the world.
Mind you, I’m not making a judgement of the content or the validity of presenting it this way (i.e. cleaning it up, which I think was stupid to do), only the process.