birth certificate

[calimac]

I'm going to wade into the fetid waters of the Obama birth certificate controversy.

Let us specify that the people who claim that there's some diabolical conspiracy, hatched in 1961 and today including the (Republican) Governor of Hawaii, to manufacture fake certificates to cover up non-wealthy teenage college student Stanley Ann Dunham flying from Hawaii to Kenya just to have her baby there and then returning to Hawaii to plant misleading birth announcements in the local newspapers - that these people are nuts.

The problem is that the response "they're nuts" covers up a question that genuinely puzzles me about this, and it may be difficult to raise the question without being incorrectly taken as subscribing to the nuts theory. I'm just asking the question.

And that question deals with the observation that the document released online is in fact apparently neither the original birth certificate nor a photocopy of it, although various nut-debunking websites say that it is the original. Look at the bottom where it says "(Rev. 11/01) LASER". No document from 1961 would say that. That's even ignoring the typeface, which doesn't look 1961 either. It also appears to be stamped "2007" on the back. This is clearly not the document made at the time of Obama's birth, but one generated at a later time.

At the bottom of the document, it says, "This copy serves as prima facie evidence of birth in any court proceeding," and obviously such a copy is what the State of Hawaii issues to people wanting copies of their birth certificates for passport purposes or whatever, and it is accepted as such. (It also says "Any alterations invalidate this certificate," and perhaps the blacking out of the certificate number does so, but that's another question.) However, "prima facie" doesn't mean "conclusive proof"; it means "on first sight; in the absence of reason to challenge."

So the question is: what happened to the original birth certificate, and why hasn't it been released, and why are people claiming that this is it? A quote at the Snopes debunking says "state law bars release of a certified birth certificate to anyone who does not have a tangible interest in it." OK, but this is, for legal purposes, a certified certificate (yea, even a certificated certified certificate of certification), and Obama obviously received it and released it, so why hasn't he received and released the original?

A clue seems to lie in the cryptic wording "[HRS 338-13(b), 338-19]" at the bottom of the certificated certified certificate. Anyone who's worked at a law school library, as I have, will immediately guess that HRS stands for Hawaii Revised Statutes, and here they are.

Section 338-13(b) says "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." Copies of the contents of.

Paragraph (a) distinguishes among "a certified copy of any certificate, or the contents of any certificate, or any part thereof." This is not the certificate, nor even a copy of the certificate. This is a copy of the contents of the certificate (or more precisely a web-based scan, but the nut-debunking websites say that the original, by which they evidently mean the original of this scan, has been inspected and verified). Or more likely a copy of part of the contents thereof. My birth certificate, of which I have a certified photostat copy of the original, is not from Hawaii but does have a lot of other information as well as everything the Obama copy has, including most relevantly the name and address of the hospital of birth, as well as the signatures of my mother as informant and the attending physician. My copy was given me by my parents, and I believe it's the original copy they received when it was filed, soon after my birth.

On to 338-19. It says, "The department of health is authorized to prepare typewritten, photostatic, or microphotographic copies of any records and files in its office, which by reason of age, usage, or otherwise are in such condition that they can no longer be conveniently consulted or used without danger of serious injury or destruction thereof, and to certify to the correctness of such copies. The typewritten, photostatic, or microphotographic copies shall be competent evidence in all courts of the State with like force and effect as the original."

So is the original birth certificate too damaged to photocopy or even take a photograph of, or to pull out of the file? That'd have to be awfully badly damaged, considering how gently photocopies may be made these days. So it seems puzzling. And if it is the case, then why hasn't someone simply said so? Why do I have to delve into the cryptic "beware of the leopard" filing cabinet of the Hawaii Revised Statutes in order to get even this much of a clue?

It's nuts to postulate a conspiracy theory on the basis of this. But it is not nuts to point out that the released document is not the original birth certificate, or to ask what happened to the original.

Comments

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I hadn't even heard of the controversy, but I love this kind of detective work! The intriguing phrase to me is 'or otherwise' in 338-19. Obama's certificate is surely unlikely to be unusable through age or usage, so there must be something else that makes it so. Damage by an incensed Republican on November 5th? A coffee stain? I'm assuming that absence isn't a possibility, given that the paragraph applies only to 'records and files in its office.'

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

P.S. (Not wanting to derail, but) it's always seemed to me that the real scandal is the provision in the Constitution that makes some US citizens second-class ones, ineligible to stand for president.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

There was some concern about allowing persons of foreign birth to become head of state and commander in chief of the armed forces. At the other end of the same century, your country passed a law prohibiting Catholics from holding that position, which I believe has caused a certain amount of minor grumbling in recent years.

[n6tqs.livejournal.com]

Maybe the original doesn't exist? It could be there are only "copies" in existence. Or the original has information that's now considered irrelevant, offensive or private.

When I needed a birth certificate, back in 1965 (I was 19), we found that the original was apparently incorrect (IIRC, they changed my given name between the filing of the certificate and my baptism). The Navy recruiter was quite prepared to postpone my enlistment, since such documents were, in his experience, hard to correct. It turned out the official in charge of the documents was a relative who could, from personal knowledge, correct it, so I turned up with an official certified photostat (which I still have) of the corrected document the next day. It's obvious that a change was made, though.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

That law is bad, of course, but then monarchy is an undemocratic institution from top to bottom and inside out, so I wouldn't expect any better! (Mind you, we've had quite a few heads of state of foreign birth.) By contrast, the US constitution is a generally admirable document, and it seems a pity that by implication it impugns both the patriotism of one group of citizens, and the ability of the electorate to detect any lack of patriotism through the usual democratic means.

[n6tqs.livejournal.com]

Yes, especially the age and residency requirements.

[whumpdotcom.livejournal.com]

When I ordered my birth certificate from the State of Colorado in 1992, I was sent a laser printed document from the appropriate department.

It's an official document. The 'original' probably does not even exist.

This is Standard Operating Procedure.

The Birthers are lying, malicious thugs taking advantage of people without a clue to how the modern State manages records.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Then I am one of those people without a clue as to how the modern State manages records. It is not often that I need access to the government's filed copy of a paper record, but when I do, I have never had the experience of being given a new document testifying that the original document exists or had existed. That still seems weird to me. Were I really determined to investigate this, I might apply for a new copy of my own birth certificate and see what I get this time.

But if this is SOP with birth certificates, why on earth have none of the nut-debunkers said so? They keep acting as if the 2007 document is the 1961 document, rather than the State's certification of the 1961 document, and leave it open for the nuts to wonder darkly why the 1961 document is not being released. "What has Obama got to hide?" is, IIRC, an exact quote.

This could easily be cleared up, but as it is it's puzzling even people like me who have no bent towards conspiracies.

[fr-john.livejournal.com]

Well, I know that marriage licenses (in California) are restricted in ink color that can be used because they are scanned into computer on recording. I don't believe that paper copies are kept after they are in the computer. I would assume that the same is the case with birth certificates, that in most jurisdictions they are not kept on paper at all. All that exists is computer scans.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Maybe so, but what was released was not a computer scan of a 1961 document. It was a new document copying (some of) the text.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Maybe the original doesn't exist?

Here's a news item saying they have it and have looked at it. The question becomes why they can't release a copy of that to Obama.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

"The 'original' probably does not even exist."

This says it does, and has been inspected.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

The US Constitution was also written to deny the voters a direct choice in presidential elections, interposing an electoral college instead. This was on the grounds that ordinary voters of those days might not be familiar with the qualifications of presidential timber from other states, but they'd know who their own local worthies were, and those local worthies might be better-informed.

Again this kind of made sense at the time. (And a hereditary monarchy makes sense when you're still thinking of a kingdom as a personal possession of the monarch; we still allow personal possessions to descend by inheritance today.)

[n6tqs.livejournal.com]

That's worth something, but not a lot- it is a news article, after all.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

It took me a while even to find it as a news article, and not being quoted by some nut who claims that they're lying or that the original is faked.

[ron-drummond.livejournal.com]

Well done. I do wish you had the time to pursue it further, just to get to the bottom of it once and for all.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

In Britain the kingdom has never been seen as the personal possession of the monarch - except perhaps in the warped mind of Charles I, who was given a sharp lesson on the matter - but I suppose you could talk about the kingship being inherited. Of course, that doesn't make monarchy a whit more justifiable as a system of government!

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

You're overinterpreting "personal possession." I'm talking about feudalism, not absolutism. Charles I's problem was that he couldn't tell the difference.

[divertimento.livejournal.com]

Something that I've heard in reports lately is that the Hawaii Department of Health digitized all its records in 2001 in a "paperless" effort. Original paper birth certificates on file were routinely destroyed after the digitized system was set up. I wonder if Nicholson Baker has had any comment about this situation.