Forensic Investigation Obama Birth Certificate

8/14/2019 Forensic Investigation Obama Birth Certificate

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Perhaps theoutspoken Israeli

press corps will beable to do what their fawning

Americancounterparts havefailed to do so far.Obama's visit thisweek to Israel will be an opportunity to begin askingthe toughquestions --however unpolitically correct -- about his apparently forged birthcertificate and what that meansfor his citizenship

status and Constitutional fitness to be thenext leader of thefree world.

Document forensics expert: Obama "birth certificate" a"horrible forgery"By Israel Insider staff July 20, 2008

Barack Obama may be on a world tour surrounded by a fawning media, butSunday an expert in electronic document forensics released a detailed report

on the purported birth certificate -- actually a "Certification of Live Birth" orCOLB -- claimed as genuine by his campaign. The expert concludes with 100%certainty that it is a crudely forged fake: "a horribly forgery," according to theanalysis published on the popular right-wing Atlas Shrugs blog.

The purported birth certificate was published by the left wing Daily Kos blogon June 12 in response to unconfirmed reports that Obama was not in factborn in the United States (Canada and Kenya were suggested as the possiblelocations of his actual birth). Since he would in that case not be a natural bornUS citizen (his mother was not present in the US sufficiently long as an adultto pass American citizenship on to him automatically), he would not be eligibleto 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 blogsite, 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 detailedand technically sophisticated to date.

Atlas Shrugs publisher Pamela Geller reports that the expert analyst, who goesby the screen name "Techdude", is "an active member of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, American College of Forensic Examiners, TheInternational Society of Forensic Computer Examiners, InternationalInformation Systems Forensics Association -- the list goes on. He also a boardcertified as a forensic computer examiner, a certificated legal investigator, and

a licensed private investigator. He has been performing computer-basedforensic investigations since 1993 (although back then it did not even have aformal name yet) and he has performed countless investigations since then."

The pseudonym was apparently inadequate to preventTechdude's identity from being exposed. He reports thatlast week one or more persons "decided to track medown and vandalize my car and hang a dead mutilatedrabbit from my front door in a lame attempt to intimidateme from proceeding with releasing any details of myanalysis. They did succeed in delaying the report by afew days but instead of deterring me they just reallypissed me off. To their credit, if I had not taken a fewdays off from the analysis I would have missed the most

damning piece of evidence -- the remnants of theprevious security border."

Techdude's detailed report, which runs more than 3000words and 20 pages with extensive magnified illustrationsand comparisons, reaches the following conclusion aboutthe documented that was first published on the Daily Kosextreme left-wing blog and subsequently publiclyendorsed by the Obama campaign, both in statements byofficial spokesmen, and featured on its "Fight theSmears" website. Here are some of conclusions:

"The (Daily) KOS image security border pattern does not

match any known specimen from any known year. It doesnot match the pre-2006 nor does it match the post-2006certificate patterns. The placement of the text in all of thepre-2006 and post-2006 certificates are almost identicalpixel location matches while the image?s text placementdoes not match any known specimen from any known


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year. The shape and kerning of the fonts used in the2006 through 2008 certificates are identical while the

shape and kerning of the fonts used in the image does not match any knownspecimen. The KOS image shows clear signs of tampering such as themismatch in RGB and error levels, visible indications of the previous location of the erased security border, easily detectable patterns of repeating flawsaround the new security border, EXIF data that says the image was last savedwith Photoshop CS3 for Macintosh, and finally a technician from Hawaii whoconfirms it just looks wrong."

The evidence, he says, allows for two possible scenarios by which thedocument was fabricated:

"There are two obvious scenarios used to create the image that can beascertained from evidence. Either a real COLB was scanned into Photoshopand digitally edited or a real COLB was first scanned to obtain the graphiclayout then blanked by soaking the document in solvent to remove the toner.After rescanning the blank page to a separate image the graphics from thepreviously obtained scan could then be easily applied to the blank scan aftersome editing and rebuilding. It would also explain why date stamp bleedsthrough the paper and the various bits of toner located around the image aswell as the remnants of the previous location of a security border."

The purported birth certificate was published by the Daily Kos on June 12 inresponse 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 passAmerican citizenship on to him automatically), he would not be eligible to bepresident.

After more than a month of controversy and demands that the Obamacampaign produce a paper birth certificate for analysis, this damning newevidence raises the stakes for the democratic party and its front-runner.

Will Obama and his people continue to stonewall in the facing of the mountingevidence of forgery, and provide paper proof of an authentic, original birthcertificate or even a genuine secondary Certificate of Live Birth? And will the

mass media and mainstream pundits -- which so far have hesitated to touchthe hot potato -- finally address the loaded issue of his possible unfitness tomeet the basic Constitutional requirement for a President?

Perhaps the outspoken Israeli press corps will be able to do what their fawningAmerican counterparts have failed to do so far. Obama's visit this week toIsrael will be an opportunity to begin asking the tough questions -- howeverunpolitically correct -- about his apparently forged birth certificate and whatthat means for his citizenship status and Constitutional fitness to be the nextleader of the free world.

This is the sixth of a series on the purported Obama birth certificate. Here'swhere you can find Part 1 , 2 , 3 4 , and 5 .

Other articles about Barack Obama are linked on the upper left of this article.

Join our cool new (N)Obama Club , where you can stay up to date withconstantly updated videos, photos, and news streams about Barack H. Obamaand discuss him in infinite depth and detail with other fans and critics.

2001-2004 Koret Communications Ltd. All rights reserved.


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"I can confirm that

that is Sen.Obama's birth

certificate."

Ben LaBolt, anObama campaign

Obama campaign claims suspect "birth certificate" as genuineitemBy Reuven Koret June 21, 2008

In response to mounting media questions about the failure of the Barack

Obama presidential campaign to produce the presumptive Democraticnominee's birth certificate, an official spokesman of the campaign hasendorsed as genuine the image of a document purporting to be his "birthcertificate." But some who have examined that image in high resolution claiminconsistencies and irregularities which suggest that the purported document isa forgery. Its high profile use by the campaign, they claim, suggests anattempt to conceal the truth of Obama's birth circumstances and citizenshipqualifications from the American people.

The campaign has posted only a low-resolution image of that document,which it claims is his "birth certificate," on its "Fight the Smears" website,along with purported proof of why the claim that Obama may not qualify as a

"natural born citizen" is false:

---Lie: Obama Is Not a Natural Born Citizen

Truth: Senator Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961, after it became a state on August21st, 1959. Obama became a citizen at birth under the first section of the14th 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 whereinthey reside...."---

Contrary to the campaign's claims, the issue of when Hawaii became a stateand the wording of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, are not atissue.

Rather it is Article Two, Section One of the Constitution which requires thatthe 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 theoriginal birth certificate -- if it in fact such a certificate exists.

Some bloggers have claimed that the purported official State of Hawaiidocument, originally published by the radical left Daily Kos blog , is a fake,and a poorly executed one at that.

Examination of the higher resolution of the image indicates irregularities whichsuggest to some that the purported "certificate" may be a forgery produced ormodified by Photoshop or another image-editing software, and not a genuineitem.

The evidence, presented in greatest detail by theblogger Polarik at TownHall , includes:

1. Use of a second generation reproduction of the seal of the State of Hawaii at the top2. Blacking out of the Certificate number in an attempt toprevent it from being traced3. Absence of any official signature or seal which typically


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spo esman, o eLos Angeles Times.

appear on such documents4. Crudely arranged borders inconsistent with aprofessionally produced official document

5. Crude overlay of the textual items on top of the patterned background,indicating that the background was produced first and then the textual imageslaid on top of it by a graphical program rather than being scanned from theoriginal.6. Failure to use the double-S symbol before the listing the relevant statute(HRS 338-13b) as appears in official uses of the State of Hawaii.7. The appearance of the backward facing text "Jun 6, 2007" that appears tocome from a stamp in the lower right hand portion of the document.8. The description of his father's race as African, when the term Negro wasreportedly used at the time of birth.9. The use of an identical typeface for all text items on the page.

Even if one or two of the above irregularities may have an explanation, theyclaim, the aggregate points to an amateurish attempt to manufacture anofficial-looking document that may not exist in the official records of the stateof Hawaii.

On its face, this document does not even presume to be a copy of the originalbirth certificate -- contrary to the claims of the Obama campaign -- but rathera secondary Certification of Live Birth, which may be used when the originalbirth certificate can't be located, and can be produced after the fact with justthe affadavits of a family member, or even the child himself.

The Obama campaign, however, has not even produced a paper version of thisdocument, and indeed it does not even publish the high resolution version thatappeared on the Daily Kos. It has not fulfilled the media's persistent requeststo produce the original Birth Certificate, or to respond to media questionsabout the birth certificate controversy.

What could be the Obama campaign's motive for withholding the original birthcertificate and passing off instead a crudely forged facsimile of a "Certificationof Live Birth"?

Speculation in the blogosphere and mainstream media is rampant that theconcealment is for one or more of the following reasons:

1. There is no proof that Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961.2. The father listed on the birth certificate is not Barack Hussein Obama.3. The father's race is listed as something other than African, perhaps Muslimor Arab.4. The mother was no longer at that time an American citizen.5. The child's name is not listed as Barack Hussein Obama II.

Jim Geraghty, reporting on the Campaign Spot blog of the National Review andone of the original writers on the controversy , cited the "rumor" thatObama was born not within the United States, but elsewhere, possibly Kenya.

Geraghty stated that "If Obama were born outside the United States, onecould 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]iveof which had to be after the age of 16.'"

He then points out that Ann Dunham, Obama's mother, was 18 when Obamawas born "so she wouldn't have met the requirement of five years after the

age of 16."

According to FindLaw.com, cited by Geraghty, the requirements that were inforce from Dec. 24, 1952 to Nov. 13, 1986, encompassing the time of Obama's birth, state, "If only one parent was a U.S. citizen at the time of your


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birth, that parent must have resided in the United States for at least 10 years,at least five of which had to be after the age of 16."

Geraghty said the Obama campaign could "debunk" the rumors about his birthsimply by releasing a copy of his birth certificate, but the campaign has so farchosen not to do that.

The seriousness of this latest controversy cannot be underestimated. Unlikethe scandals related to Obama's various associations with unsavorycharacters, or claims about his Muslim upbringing, the issue here relates to hiscitizenship and legal qualification to run for President of the United States.

One would have thought that the most basic documentary proof of the locationand date of his birth should be a basic and non-controversial requirement forany presidential candidate, and part of the public record, much more so thanone's tax return or annual checkup. It is almost incomprehensible that theywould withhold this information -- unless there is something to hide.

Ironically, a similar controversy surrounded Obama's likely opponent in thePresidential race, John McCain. McCain was born to two American parents, oneof whom was serving in a US military hospital in the Panama Canal Zone.

This Washington Post column on "Citizen McCain's Panama Problem?"examines the issue:

"McCain was indeed born in the Canal Zone, and Article II of the Constitutionplainly states that 'no person except a natural born Citizen... shall be eligibleto the Office of President.'

"Some might define the term 'natural-born citizen' as one who was born onUnited States soil. But the First Congress, on March 26, 1790, approved an actthat declared, 'The children of citizens of the United States that may be bornbeyond sea, or outside the limits of the United States, shall be considered asnatural-born citizens of the United States.' That would seem to includeMcCain, whose parents were both citizens and whose father was a Navy officerstationed at the U.S. naval base in Panama at the time of John's birth in1936."

But the issue is not legally closed, and therefore this year, as reported in thelegal column of the Wall Street Journal a non-binding resolution wasintroduced and passed affirming that McCain qualifies as a "natural bornCitizen," as specified in the Constitution and is therefore eligible for thehighest office in the land. Ironically, the resolution was co-sponsored byBarack 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 inPanama, or posting certificates that claim he was born in Florida. Obama'scampaign, on the other hand, seems intent on evading the need to produceand submit to public scrutiny the official document that could prove that hisqualification to run for President according to the Constitution.

The cloud of controversy, of course, could be dispelled with ease, of course, if Obama would release the real documentation of his birth, or even the originalprinted version of the online document the campaign claims as genuine. Andyet the campaign is sticking by its guns, despite the evidence from theblogosphere pointing to the forgery and inadequacy of the proffered image of the non-birth certificate. Ben LaBolt, an Obama campaign spokesman, told the

LA Times : "I can confirm that that is Sen. Obama's birth certificate."

Validation for the authenticity of the image is provided by a reporter for theSt. Petersburg Times , who reportedly emailed the image and got aconfirmation from an official in the Hawaiian Department of Health. "It's a


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valid Hawaii state birth certificate," spokesman Janice Okubo is quoted astelling the reporter.

Israel Insider is checking into this report and will report back on its findings.



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Unstamped certificate suggests Obama may not be "naturalborn" US citizenBy Reuven Koret June 24, 2008

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, hasbeen the subject of intense skepticism in the blogosphere in the past twoweeks. But now the senior spokesman of that Department has confirmed toIsrael 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 thatvariations of the certificate image were posted on the Photobucket imageaggregation website -- including one listing the location of Obama's birth asAntarctica, one with the certificate supposedly issued by the government of

North Korea, and another including a purported photo of baby Barack -- oneof which has a "photo taken" time-stamp just two minutes before thearticle 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 vitalrecords for any of the fifty states, and the liberties that other Photoshopperstook with the certificates confirms this.

Some of these oddities surfaced in Israel Insider's previous article on thesubject , but new comparative documentary evidence presented below, andofficial verification obtained by Israel Insider from a senior Hawaiian official,provides the strongest confirmation yet.

An authentic Hawaiian birth certificate for another Hawaiian individual hassince surfaced which, using the same official form as the presumptive Obamacertificate, includes an embossed official seal and an authoritative signature,coming through from the back. Obama's alleged certificate lacks thosefeatures, and the certificate number referencing the birth year has beenblacked out, making it untraceable.

Janice Okubo, Director of Communications of the State of HawaiiDepartment of Health, told Israel Insider : "At this time there are nocircumstances in which the State of Hawaii Department of Healthwould issue a birth certification or certification of live birth onlyelectronically." And, she added, "In the State of Hawaii all certifiedcopies of certificates of live birth have the embossed seal andregistrar signature on the back of the document."

Compare the top image presented by his campaign as evidence of Obama's1961 birth and the other certifying the birth of one Patricia Decosta.


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Click for higher resolution image .

Click for higherresolution image .

So if he were registered as being born in Hawaii, Barack Obama -- because


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only he or another member of his immediate family could by law request a"Certification of Live Birth" -- must have a certified paper copy, with embossedstamp and seal, or he could request one. But what his campaign has putforward as genuine, according to the senior spokesman in the relevantdepartment of the State of Hawaii, is not in fact a certified copy. It is notvalid.

Whereas the uncertified Obama document provides the date "filed byregistrar", the certified DeCosta document provides the date "accepted by theregistrar." The difference between filing an application for a Certification of Live Birth and having it accepted may be key here.

The Obama campaign, however, continues to flaunt the unstamped,unsealed, uncertified document -- notably in very low resolution -- on its"Fight the Smears" website, with campaign officials vowing that it's authentic,sending the image around as "proof" to reporters, and inviting supporters torefer to it as they battle against supposed distortions and calumnies againsttheir candidate. However, the campaign refuses to produce an authenticoriginal birth certificate from the year of Obama's birth, or even a paperversion with seal and signature of the "Certification of Live Birth." Nor has iteven published an electronic copy with the requisite embossed seal andsignature.

The failure of the Obama campaign to do so, and its willingness instead to putup an invalid, uncertified image -- what now appears to be a crude forgery --raises the dramatic question of why the presumptive Democratic presidentialcandidate might have to hide.

Until now, it has been thought that there might be some embarrassinginformation on the real certificate: was the candidate's name something otherthan Barack Hussein Obama II, as it is claimed? Was no father listed becauseof the uncertainty over Obama's paternity? Was his father's race listed asArab, or Muslim, rather than African? These revelations might beembarrassing, and further undermine his credibility, but he could disavow anddownplay their significance. Would revealing such embarrassment outweighthe 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 thatObama and his campaign seems to be taking in putting forward the uncertifieddocument image: Obama was not in fact born in Hawaii and may not be anAmerican citizen at all, or at least not a "natural born citizen" as theConstitution defines the requirement for the nation's chief executive. Realoriginal birth certificates, circa 1961, have all kinds of verifiable informationthat would confirm Obama's origins, or throw them into doubt should they belacking.

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 Americanmother's youth extended time abroad would not suffice to make him a"natural born citizen." Even if he were naturalized later -- and there is noevidence that he was -- he would not be eligible to run for the office of president and -- if forgery or misrepresentation were involved -- he and hisstaffers 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 onewill go away, too.

Because the consequences were he to admit, or should it come out, that hewas not born in Hawaii would be so grave as to make it tempting to take the


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gamble and hope that no one dares call his most audacious bluff bydemanding proof. Talk about the audacity of hope.

But now the State of Hawaii has dashed those hopes by clarifying that acertified birth certificate must have an embossed seal and signature, featureshis 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 forall: produce for public inspection and objective analysis the paper copy of hisoriginal Hawaiian birth certificate -- if one exists. If he's lost the original, hecan request a certified copy. Ordinary citizens are required to produce one toget a passport or a driver's license. Surely it's not too much to ask from aman who aspires to hold the highest office in the land.

The issue is not whether Obama is black or white, Christian or Muslim. It iswhether he was born in the USA and thus a citizen eligible according to theConstitution to run for President.

If proof of citizenship does not exist, then surely it would be wiser to admit itnow.

Because if Barack Hussein Obama II does not produce definitive proof of his"natural born" American citizenship with original, verifiable documents, he willbe setting the stage for a very public battle over his personal credibility, thebasic legitimacy of his candidacy, and its possible criminality.

UPDATE 6/26: Janice Okubo, in response to an Israeli Insider question on Tuesday, would notconfirm nor deny whether she had told a St. Petersburg Times reporterwhether she had said the birth certificate was "real", citing the statutorystipulation that "Hawaii state law (HRS ! 338-18) prevents disclosure of information contained in vital statistics records except to those people whohave a direct and tangible interest in the record as defined by statute." Thiswould, 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 Insiderreport, said he had contacted Okubo:

"I spoke to Ms. Okubo late Wednesday afternoon, and she said she had seenthe 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 thecertificate 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 siteand Daily Kos is not genuine."

"The 'embossed seal' in question is, she said, probably on the back of thedocument provided to Daily Kos, but not visible (as in another certificate

posted on Israel Insider for contrast). She thinks the difference in visibility canbe attributed to the pressure used when applying the seal."

Geraghty's interpretation of Okubo's comments is inexact and tendentious.First, her observation that "the form is the same" is not contested, here orelsewhere. No one is doubting that the form that appears on the variouswebsites (including this one) is a replica of that used for valid certificates.

Therefore Geraght's interpretation that follows "In other words" is clearly hisown conclusion, not hers.

Indeed, Okubo confirms to Geraghty that the image is lacking the "embossedseal" (and the official signature) that are required for the certificate to be


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valid. While "she thinks" that the difference in visibility might be attributed tovarying "pressure," she admits that she does not know and has not seenthe original .

Contrasting the purported Obama image with the DeCosta sample, it is hard toimagine the embossed seal and signature being of such light pressure thatthey would become completely invisible. An inked date of June 6, 2007, inreverse, does come through. But in any event, Okubo's confirmation that thepremsumptive birth certificate is lacking the required stamps makes it all themore imperative for Obama to release the original paper certification, the onlyvalid kind, and not an easy-to-photoshop electronic facsimile thereof. Itshould not be hard to produce, since Hawaii provides for family members torequest them.

Even though Geraghy notes that Obama "initially refused to provide his birthcertificate," he has suggested that it is "rather unlikely" that Obama was bornin 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 bornthere, and there is the mysterious disappearance of his grandmother, whomay indeed know something about this subject.

After all, being born in Hawaii is part of the "family legend" and it would beunreasonable to expect this to vary from interview to interview, especiallywhen 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 lifewithout having to prove that he was an American citizen. But the credulitywith which the mainstream media has automatically accepted as valid theimage that appears on the radical left Daily Kos blog and on the Obamacampaign's polemical "Fight the Smears" website makes it clear that manyhave been unwilling, now and in the past, to demand proof of an authenticdocument. They prefer to accept on faith that the candidate or his campaignwould not lie about such a thing, assuming he has nothing to hide and nomotive to lie.

But until the certified paper birth document is produced -- either by mediapressure or a legal challenge in any state -- the fact remains that Obama hasnot proven that he is a "natural born citizen" eligible to be President accordingto the Constitution.




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As Obama stonewalls on uncertified birth certificate, officialdoubts mountBy Reuven Koret June 28, 2008

A senior official in the State of Hawaii's Department of Health, Director of

Communications Janice Okubo, confirms that the image published andcirculated by the Obama campaign as his "birth certificate" lacks the necessaryembossed seal and signature. Backing away from a quote attributed to herthat the image on the campaign site was "valid," she told the St. Petersburg(Florida) Times in an article published yesterday: "I don't know that it'spossible for us to even say beyond a doubt what the image on the siterepresents."

Barack Obama has claimed in writing to have a valid printed document: In thefirst chapter of his book Dreams From My Father , describing his origins, hewrote about finding a local Hawaiian newspaper article about his Kenyanfather: "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 aweek or two. But more than two weeks have passed since the Obamacampaign adopted the suspect, uncertified image of a purported birthdocument published by a left-wing blog Daily Kos, and nothing certified andnothing on paper has since has been forthcoming. Nor has there been anyofficial comment about the issue from the campaign. They may cling to thehope -- however audacious -- that the one issue that could disqualify theirman 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 "formonths." She was frustrated: "Hawaii birth certificates aren't public record.Only family members can request copies, so when the campaign declined togive us one, we were stalled."

Finally, the campaign released the image (resembling the one at the top of thisarticle). Hollyfield e-mailed it to the Hawaii Department of Health, whichmaintains such records, to ask if it was real.

"It's a valid Hawaii state birth certificate," spokesman Janice Okubotold us.Then the firestorm started.

Israel Insider contacted Okubo several days. She could not refer to Obama'sspecific case, she said, because no one but an authorized family member cando so. But she did confirm that a valid "certification of live birth" would needto have an embossed seal and signature and that it can only be printed andmailed. There is no such thing as an electronic only certification.

In our previous article on this subject we published an example of acertified birth certificate of another Hawaiian citizen, Patricia DeCosta,reproduced below. The stamp and signature are reversed because theembossing is done from the back as per law, as Okubo noted is required bylaw.


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There's only oneway for Obama to

show he's a

natural borncitizen eligible tobe President:

produce the paper proof.

Click for higherresolution image .

Speaking to National Review Online , Okubo admitted that the Obamaimage lacked those required features but thought that perhaps the embossingwas applied too lightly.

Maybe so, but all the certificates we have seen have the embossed imprintclearly visible, as well as horizontal fold marks.

We got an email yesterday from Bryan Suits who has aradio show on KFI Los Angeles. He writes:"I have just received my State of Hawaii certified birthcertificate for my 1964 debut on the planet earth. It looks....nothing like Obama's. We've scanned it at 72dpi,300dpi. Nuthin. We can't make the emboss disappear.

Also, we can't make THE FOLDS disappear!! How did FightTheSmears do it?

I got curious when I compared his (with the 2007 datebleed) to my old beat-up1986 copy. then I went onlineon 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 notaddress them or explain them [bracketed comments from Israel Insider]:

Where is the embossed seal and the registrar's signature? [Required for validity]


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Comparing it to other Hawaii birth certificates, the color shade is different.

Isn't the date stamp bleeding through [in reverse] the back of the document [image] "June [6] 2007?" (Odd since it wassupposedly released in June 2008.)

There's no crease from being folded and mailed. [Hawaii requires printing and mailing, according to Okubo. Electronic images are never released, she assured us, nor are they valid.]

It's clearly Photoshopped and a wholesale fraud.

Hollyfield, frustrated by failing to access the required original, being refusedby the Obama campaign, and finding only secondary documents from hissubsequent career, asks what's "reasonable" and then claims that skepticsabout Obama's published birth certificate believe that there's a conspiracyafoot:

Because if this document is forged, then they all are. If thisdocument is forged, a U.S. senator and his presidential campaignhave perpetrated a vast, long-term fraud. They have done it withconspiring officials at the Hawaii Department of Health, the Cook County (Ill.) Bureau of Vital Statistics, the Illinois Secretary of State's office, the Attorney Registration & Disciplinary Commissionof the Supreme Court of Illinois and many other government agencies.

But Hollyfield is mistaken. There would be no need to invent a conspiracy

among officials. All Obama needed to do would be to pass off an uncertifieddocument as being certified. He may have done so unwittingly. Then the restcan follow without any need to conspire with any other official. They just takeit on faith that the person is an American citizen.

They don't check about the embossing requirements of the State of theHawaii. They believe Obama. Why should they doubt him, certainly after hebecomes a lawyer and a state senator? The officials believe that the claimeddocument is authentic, and therefore issue other documents, based on thephony one, buried deep in the documentary chain. Unwitting or not, however,the high stakes for basing one's citizenship on an uncertified birth certificatemust be pretty obvious to the campaign now.

Nothing else explains why Obama's campaign refused to release the originalpaper document, to make this distracting controversy go way. BecauseHollyfield 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 Internetare not satisfied. Ordinary people are compelled to produce certified paperbirth certificates to get a passport or a driver's license. Why, people areasking, doesn't Obama needed to show one to run for President?

In a follow-up contact by Hollyfield, Janice Okubo backtracked and qualified,pointing to the main issue that Israel Insider and others have brought intofocus [our comments in brackets]:


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"I guess the big issue that's being raised is the lack of anembossed seal and a signature," Okubo said, pointing out that inHawaii, both those things are on the back of the document."Because they scanned the front -- you wouldn't see those things." [But of course, as in the DeCosta sample and others, you can see it clearly.]

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 thesame, as she said to the National Review Online's Jim Geraghty.]

And about the copy we e-mailed her for verification? "When welooked at that image you guys sent us, our registrar, he thought he could see pieces of the embossed image through it." [Except that she received only what was published on the Internet and circulated by email, and no "pieces of the embossed image" docome through that. We have published the highest resolutionavailable and there is no trace of embossed seal or signature.Readers can see for themselves.]

Still, she acknowledges: "I don't know that it's possible for us "toeven 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 imageon the site represents" because she is not allowed access to Barack Obama'spersonal records. State law prohibits it.

Only Barack Obama (or another immediate family member) can authorize therelease of the paper birth certificate, and submit it to objective analysis. Herefuses 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 settleonce and for all that he is a "natural born citizen" entitled by the USConstitution to be President of the United States. Yet there is only silence andinaction from Obama and his campaign on the subject. The palpablyuncertified document remains online, with an explanation that refers only tothe date of Hawaiian Statehood and an irrelevant passage from theConstitution.

Admitting her failure to obtain a demonstrably authentic birth document forthe candidate, Hollyfield falls back at the end of her latest article into herreliance on the "straw man" of a conspiracy theory.

And there's the rub. It is possible that Obama conspired his way tothe precipice [sic] of the world's biggest job, involving a vast network of people and government agencies over decades of lies.

Anything's possible.

But step back and look at the overwhelming evidence to thecontrary and your sense of what's reasonable has to take over.

There is not one shred of evidence to disprove PolitiFact'sconclusion that the candidate's name is Barack Hussein Obama, or to support allegations that the birth certificate he released isn't

authentic.

Here Hollyfield is again incorrect. He didn't release a birth certificate, but animage of a purported "certification of live birth" that contains dubious features,lacks a traceable certificate number and -- as the Hawaiian state official Okubo


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admits -- lacks the stamp and signature required to make it valid. There needbe no conspiracy by state or federal officials, just a willingness to believeObama and accept an image that might look real but might not be.

If Obama is confident that he has a valid paper birth certificate from Hawaii, itis unreasonable for him to be withholding it.

But if he lacks a valid US birth certificate, and therefore cannot prove that heis an American citizen, then he would have good reason to put up asmokescreen and stonewall as long as he can. He would have good reason totry and slide by, as he may have done in the past, by putting up somethingthat would pass as legitimate to the untrained and uninformed, as the oneposted by the left-wing Daily Kos blog did, and which much of the mediaaccepted as such, on his say-so.

Because if Obama lacks a valid birth certificate from Hawaii, it would meanthat he has been living a lie his whole life: an illegal alien born outside thecountry who never obtained American citizenship, never became naturalized,and yet has been passing himself off as a citizen to the Illinois Bar, the IllinoisLegislature, 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 notborn in Hawaii. This may also be part of the family legend his mothercommunicated 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 hisbirth or what preceded it: "First the baby arrived, eight pounds, two ounces,with 10 toes and 10 fingers and hungry for food." Subsequent reports havehim born in two different hospitals.

Has Obama -- by the "white lie" of claiming to be born in Hawaii (whether thelie came from him or from his mother) and not Kenya or Canada as somehave 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 haveevery reason to put up a web site accusing his critics of conducting a smearcampaign to avoid answering valid questions about his identity andbackground. He would have every reason to accuse political opponents of planning a campaign that raises these questions -- as if to ask whether acandidate 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 theresponsible Hawaiian state officials.

The question is not whether he's black or white or somewhere in between. Thequestion is not whether he's a Muslim or Christian, a Democrat or aCommunist. The question is whether he can document that he was born inHawaii and thus meet the requirements of the Constitution.

Yes, the question about whether the candidate is a natural born Americancitizen is legitimate. But is Obama?

There is one loophole that may yet qualify Obama as natural-born, even if hecould 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 beforeNovember 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 parentcan demonstrate that he or she was physically present in the UnitedStates for a minimum of ten years, at least five of which were afterthe age of fourteen, prior to the birth of the child." Because Barack'smother -- born November 29, 1942 -- bore him at the age of 18 years, eight


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months plus, she could not possibly qualify for the five year requirement. (Asubsequent law reduced the five years to two, but only for children born after1986, and made provisional retroactive exceptions favoring parents serving inthe military or for international organization. Neither applies to Obama).

Thus the bottom line is this: If Obama can't prove he has a certified Hawaiianbirth certificate, he's not a natural born American. If he's not a natural bornAmerican, 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 worldwho know the truth and can prove it. They would be able to hold thatknowledge and proof over his head to make him do their bidding, or elseexpose him as a fraud, liar and, yes, an illegal alien. That is not a risk that itis reasonable for the American people to take.

Beyond the vulnerability to blackmail, there is a more fundamental questionthat must be asked if Obama is not forthcoming in producing the requisitedocumentation of his citizenship: does the American people really want toelect a man who would conceal his past and identity? Does it want to elect aman who would withhold the full truth and stonewall legitimate questions in hispursuit of the presidency, all the while claiming to be a victim and accusingothers of fraud?

There's only one way for Obama to show he's a natural born citizen eligible tobe President: produce the paper proof. If there's a seal and a signature, noproblem, he qualifies.

Whether from popular pressure or a legal challenge to his credentials, it isessential that Obama be forced to release for objective analysis the birthcertificate he claimed in own book to possess.

Each American, at watershed moments in his or her life -- to get a driver'slicense, a marriage certificate, a passport -- must produce a paper birthcertificate for official inspection and analysis. Now it's Obama's turn.




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Blogger manipulates birth certificate image, underminingObama claimsBy Israel Insider staff July 3, 2008

Jay McKinnon, a self-described Department of Homeland Security-trained

document specialist, has implicated himself in the production of palpably fakeHawaii birth certificate images similar to the one endorsed as genuine by theBarack Obama campaign, and appearing on the same Daily Kos blog entrywhere the supposedly authentic document appears.

The evidence of manipulation of images of official documents, triggered byIsrael Insider's revelation of the collection of Hawaii birth certificate images onthe Photobucket site and the diligent detective work of independentinvestigative journalists in the three weeks since the publication of the images,implicate The Daily Kos , a "progressive" blog site, and the Obamacampaign's " Fight the Smears " website, in misleading the public with official-looking but manipulated document images of doubtful provenance. Moreover,

the blog and the campaign have been negligent in allowing the promotion of obviously fake official documents together with the purported image of Obama's birth certificate.

ORIGINS OF THE SUSPECT IMAGE ON DAILY KOS

The blog entry, posted by the site founder Kos (Markos Moulitsas), ispresented as a response to a request by Jim Geraghty of the National ReviewOnline, who had, three days before, called for the Obama campaign torelease the candidate's birth certificate:

Having done some Obama-rumor debunking that got praise fromDaily Kos (a sign of the apocalypse, no doubt), perhaps the Obamacampaign could return the favor and help debunk a bunch of otherswith a simple step: Could they release a copy of his birthcertificate? Reporters have asked for it and been denied, and the state of Hawaii does not make such records public [...]

So Kos aka Moulitsas goes out and gets one. One impressed commenter onthe 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 officialdocuments, especially one as sensitive and controversial as a birth certificate?A few days later the Obama site would post a very low resolution, barelylegible image -- it still is there on the site, with no reference to the one firstposted 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 toKos 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 anotherpossible source for the document? There is no documentation of theprovenance of this image, from whom and why it was transmitted to DailyKos, and in which format. None, that is, except for the say-so of Markos


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Moulitsas, who said he simply asked the Obama campaign for it.

The perceived unreliability of the image has provoked petitions and widespreaddemands for Obama to submit for objective inspection the paper versions of the "birth certificate" he claimed in his book Dreams from My Father was inhis possession, as well as the paper version of the Certificate of Live Birth forwhich the image on the Daily Kos and the Obama "Fight the Smears" websitewas supposedly generated.

Without a valid birth certificate, the primary record of US birth, Obama cannotprove that he fulfills the "natural born citizen" requirement of the Constitution,throwing into doubt his eligibility to run for President and throwing the raceinto turmoil. His presumed Kenyan-born father was foreign-born, and hismother was too young at the time of birth to confer natural born status byvirtue of her American citizenship. Thus his citizenship comes down to provinghe was born in the USA, and his campaign has staked its credibility on theauthenticity of the Daily Kos-derived birth certificate image. (These aspects of the case are covered extensively in the previous article in this series.)

WHO IS OPENDNA/JAY McKINNON?

Jay McKinnon ask opendna, who says he is 25-30 years old, operates awebsite called opendna.com and uses the opendna screen name on variousweb sites and blogs, including his comments and diary on The Daily Kos. Inrecent years he has divided his time between Long Beach, California andVancouver, British Columbia. He is a Democratic political activist, frequentcontributor to the left wing Daily Kos blog, and a fervent Barack Obamasupporter.

opendna posted on his Photobucket album two versions of a "Certification of Live Birth" document image, here and here . Both, as demonstrated in therespective blogs of analysts Polarik and JimJ , have a common visualsignature (a dot that appears on all four images) with the images posted onthe Daily Kos site image that the Obama campaign has endorsed as genuineon its "Fight the Smears" website and has distributed to news media as the"real" birth certificate of Barack Obama. The signature dot appears on thatone, too, when magnified , albeit a bit ... smeared.

Here's the same anomaly appears in Jay Mckinnon/opendna's images(highlight added by JimJ:


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View the larger image .

One image created and posted by opendna is what he describes as a "blanktemplate" of a State of Hawaii Certification of Live Birth. Only two data fieldsare filled in: the ISLAND OF BIRTH ("Oahu") and the HOUR OF BIRTH (7:24PM). Neither of the images have a posted date stamp, but embedded EXIFinformation contains the time stamp of June 12 at 8:24am, the same day andtime Daily Kos posted the purported Obama birth certificate.

Both images lack two salient characteristics present in the Barack Obama birthcertificate images claimed by the Daily Kos blog and Obama's "Fight theSmears" site. The Field under CERTIFICATE NO is blank whereas on thepurported "Obama birth certificate" that area is blacked out as if to conceal areal number. In addition, the two documents posted to the opendna accountlack the reversed date (June 6, 2007) that appears at the bottom of thepurported "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 "Obamabirth certificate," which also claims 7:24 pm as the HOUR OF BIRTH and Oahuas the ISLAND OF BIRTH. The odds of an identical time occurring by chance intwo certificates is 1440 to 1. Either the former is derived from the latter, orthe latter is derived from the former.

If "Haye I.B Ahphorgerie" were derivative of the purported "Obama birthcertificate," it would have meant that -- in a matter of minutes on the morningof June 12, 2008, opendna would have had to tracelessly erase all fields (saveISLAND OF BIRTH and the HOUR OF BIRTH), and to painstakingly remove theblacked out area near CERTIFICATE NO and the reversed date that appears atthe bottom of the purported "Obama birth certificate." Given the complexity of the background pattern, it would have been difficult to do this without leavingbehind traces of the extractions. For what motive would one want to do this?

Given that this is an official state document, the risks of altering andtampering 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 andgames.

The second possibility is that the blank document preceded the purportedObama birth certificate, serving as a "master" for the other. Either one wouldfind a "blank document" and fill it in, or one would scan or photograph anauthentic document and then "clean it" to create a blank document that wouldbe filled in with personal details and the necessary stamps and signatures. Onemight be inclined to leave in type for two rows for alignment purposes and toensure that the font type and size are consistent. Later one would fill in theblank areas with the desired data and "authentic" markings.

McKINNON's VISUAL CONFESSION ON THE DAILY KOS

The significance of opendna's manipulated birth certificate template can bediscerned by looking more closely at the Daily Kos blog entry in which thepurported Obama birth certificate first appears.

Indeed, the document image was initially posted with a resolution of 1024 x1000. Only later, after it was discovered that the document stamp and officialsignature were lacking from the document image, Kos replaced the image withthe 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, andthere is no visible registrar signature, which is also required for a certifieddocument.) But it is impossible to make out with the naked eye, and themanipulation is illegible and useless for verification purposes.


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A possible answer for some of these anomalies is provided in banter betweenopendna and other commenters in the discussion thread of the blog post.

At 12:41pm, a prior request for a "font expert" is answered by opendna: "Howabout a certified DHS [Department of Homeland Security] document expert?"And by 1:35pm opendna comes up with a suggestion for a new birthcertificate for John McCain : "Why don't you just print one up for him?Here's a blank template."

And sure enough, there in the comments stream, he provides the "almostblank" 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 absurdto include a Hawaii birth certificate for John McCain, but what's striking is theavailability of a "blank template" as McKinnon calls it.

The next commenter is impressed: "why can't Geraghty find this stuff? (butbloggers like you have it at thier fingertips? No wonder print media is in totalcollapse."

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 birthcertificate document. That doesn't make much sense: Kos doesn't need a birthcertificate 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 hetrying to impress the other commenters? For this did he go through thetrouble of removing all the text and the reverse date-stamp? Or was the blanktemplate "just lying around somewhere" on his computer or in some corner of the Internet, just happening to have the identical information as the purportedObama birth certificate?


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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'msure that every forgery includes a note that essentially says "Hey! I'm aforgery!"

At 01:27:12 PM PDT, some three hours later, under the subject "!!!" andwithout any further comment, OpenDNA posts a crop of his Haye I.B


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Ahphorgerie image.

In other word, in response to Corvo's comment, McKinnon makes a visual"joke" -- "Hey," the document is saying: "I be a forgery!"

Remarkably, though, the Ahphorgerie crop appears seven minutes beforeopendna posts the "blank template" birth certificate image with the suggestionto "print one up" for Obama. So opendna was working on the image at thattime.

Of course, the almost-blank "Haye I.B Ahphorgerie" birth certificate is not aparticularly useful counterfeit but, as McKinnon suggests, it could be put togood use by "printing one up" using the "blank template." It's as if opendnacouldn't resist boasting, after the release of the "official" Obama version, of hisown role: "Hey, I be a forgery!"

It is certainly worthy of note that the "Haye I.B Ahphorgerie" image andcomments were subsequently excised from the discussion thread, somethingthat could only have been done by a site administrator or Kos himself.However, the management failed to clean up in the site archive from wherethese images were pulled and, as of this writing, is still publicly accessible.The suppression of the comments indicates that one or more persons at DailyKos were involved in the attempted cover-up.

ON THE UNBEARABLE EASE OF BIRTH CERTIFICATE FORGERY

None of this is not to imply that McKinnon himself forged the Obamadocument, with all the fields filled in with information about the presidentialcandidate but lacking the visible stamp and signature that alone would make itan authentic document. Nor is their proof positive about how the almost-blank"Oahu 7:24pm" document is related to the one endorsed by the Obamacampaign that features those exact details.

The presence on the Daily Kos blog of the admittedly forged almost-blanktemplates of the document, and the admission of forgery by opendna in thatsame blog entry, should cause the Obama campaign to reassess its relianceon the image of the birth certificate published by the Daily Kos.

If the website is the home for a self-admitted federally-trained documentspecialist, with examples of forgery posted concurrently with the image theyclaim as authentic, is that a venue appropriate for a presidential candidate toshowcase the only available high resolution purported image of his vitalrecords? If the birth certificate endorsed by his campaign turns out to be afraud -- and the overwhelming evidence assembled points to it being preciselythat -- what would that say about the credentials and judgment of thepresidential candidate it purports to represent? Let alone his Constitutional

eligibility to serve.

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 anypaper 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 JayMcKinnon showed off his DHS-derived knowledge, discussing under theheading of "The Perfect ID Card" the ease of forging US documents, birthcertificates in particular:


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"Most Americans have worse ID than illegal immigrants. So, youhave 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 signone saying I told him I'm a carrot. Birth certificates, are youserious? Take a look at yours. Chances are I could counterfeit it atKinkos."

Jay McKinnon may not have had to go that far.

In the course of my subsequent email exchange with McKinnon -- more on

that in the next article -- he at last agreed to release the following statement:"I believe there is overwhelming evidence that Senator Obama is a naturalborn US Citizen, and I have no evidence to contradict that belief." He did notrelate to the veracity of the Obama birth certificate images.

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 theupper left of this article.




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Birth certificate "painter" mocks Obama claim that imageproves authenticityBy Israel Insider staff July 7, 2008

In a rambling interview with the Daily Kos -- the blog site that published

the supposedly authentic Barack Hussein Obama birth certificate and his ownbirth certificate manipulations in the same June 12 post, Jay McKinnon, akaopendna, says he manipulated the Obama birth certificate to create a blankHawaii birth certificate as a "template," supposedly for a John McCain birthcertificate. But he says it was not an attempt at deception but a "lame joke"that he now regrets.

But in trying to avoid legal trouble by diminished the significance of manipulating electronic images, he further undermines the explicit claims of the Barack Obama campaign and the Daily Kos itself that the posted images of his purported birth certificate prove that the candidate was Hawaii-born.McKinnon, who says he was trained in document analysis by the Department

of Homeland Security, says it's impossible to assess the authenticity of a birthcertificate from image files rather than paper documents. "It should be self-evident that a JPEG [image file] of a scanned official document cannot bevalid."

While that conclusion echoes and strengthens the calls of those who have beendemanding that Obama provide paper proof, McKinnon undermines his owncredibility from the get-go when he claims that he first encountered theObama birth certificate issue "around June 12, 2008" when "As I recall,someone sent me an email containing two images. One of the Decosta birthcertificate and the other from Fight The Smears. The subject line was 'BirthCertificate Appears to be "Invalid."

The only trouble with that statement is that McKinnon had already created theblank Hawaii birth certificate template for John McCain and the "Ahphorgerie"

joke on June 12 before Fight the Smears had even published the birthcertificate. Kos had published it that morning, about four hours earlier. PatriciaDeCosta's birth certificate surfaced in the blogosphere only a week later, onJune 19. So how did he compare the documents? And why would he say itwas the first he'd heard of the birth certificate controversy when he hadalready posted his own patently fake certificates.

In any case, McKinnon says, comparing two images to determine the validityof one or the other is a patently ridiculous task: "It was a kin [to] comparingtwo 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 imagewhich has been proved to be derived directly from the Daily Kos scan. Theformer would have been useless for McKinnon to look at. So why didn't helook at the Daily Kos scan instead, which he had to know was the source forwhat appears on Fight the Smears? It doesn't make any sense.

His explanation of the blank template is even more convoluted. "I madeanother joke about people making allegations of fraud: If people are allegedlyfaking 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 sametime? 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 themotivation 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


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"It should be self-

evident that a

JPEG of a scanned

official document

cannot be valid."

Jay McKinnon, DHS-trained documentspecialist andMicrosoft Paintpower user

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 Seascrolls as McCain's birth certificate and other cheap shots. McKinnon isprojecting this into the past to rationalize his own suggestion: "Why don't youprint one up for him? Here's a blank template." He was just having fun. Andwhile McKinnon may claim that no one took it seriously, the real point is notwhether his blank template could be used to create a passable paperdocument but whether that blank template may have been used to create thebirth certificate image file of Barack Hussein Obama, as the Daily Kosproduced that very day, and the very same day that McKinnon produced hisfakes.

Clearly it could have been, by the exact same techniquethat McKinnon used: stripping one birth certificate andadding new text for the desired data. We carefully did notaccuse him of doing this, but as he proves, supposedlywith Microsoft Paint (!), it would have been easy enoughto do it. (It's still not clear why he went to all the troubleto make his "lame joke" or why a document specialistwith extensive accounts at Photobucket and Flicker isusing Microsoft Paint.)

The dubious origins of the BHO birth certificate on theKos site, without a logical explanation other than that theObama 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 aproduction and publication facility is beyond irregular, especially given thehighly tendentious content on that site, including most recently its promotionof fake press passes.

McKinnon was asked: Weren't you worried someone would download yourimages and make fake birth certificates? "Not in the slightest. Anyone whotries 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 acommendable 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 acomputer screen and a physical, printed, stamped and sealed governmentdocument (no matter how poor the quality)."

Here, too, McKinnon puts forward a red herring: the issue isn't whethersomeone 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 athumor. 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 factthat McKinnon, who prides himself on being so much smarter than everyoneelse, or at least 11 and a half out of 12, doesn't seem to address that issueonly adds to the sense that he is being disingenuous and concealing the realtimeline of events.

Though McKinnon's interview is transparently intended to exculpate himself,his critique raises the obvious question. There is no evidence that anyone atDaily Kos received Obama's paper birth certificate. So what did they receive?Another JPEG, at most. And after what he says in his Daily Kos interview, whyshould anybody believe that JPEGs produced by Daily Kos are authentic? AsMcKinnon himself says, any JPEG can be faked. So why doesn't Daily Kos take

seriously the comments of their interviewee and acknowledge that thesupposed image of Obama's birth certificate is of no validity in ascertaining thedocument's authenticity?

So how does McKinnon justify his belief that Obama is "natural born"? By the


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fact that he used a passport! But how did Obama get his passport? Byproducing, one presumes, a birth certificate. So where is it? Why is such aproblem to produce it? Why should the wannabe President play hide-and-seekwith the prime Constitutional requirement for a US President?

McKinnon personal attacks on me deserve only a brief answer. He refuses todiscuss anything without his lawyer and asked me to provide the questions inwriting. Then, instead of answering, he told me to call "the office", whichturned out to be the Public Relations department of CSIS, the "Canadian CIA."I had not said anything about the CSIS or FBI before that. I had submitted, atMcKinnon's request, the following question: "What was the role of Kos (DailyKos founder Markos Moulitsas) in the preparation and publication of thedocuments?" McKinnon responded: "When you finally write your article, don'tforget to recognize Uncle Mark's hard work. He'd be really hurt if you forgothim."

Another McKinnon joke? Perhaps. But I am not sure Markos Moulitsas will findit amusing.

Finally, McKinnon claimed I didn't include the quote he provided forpublication. I guess he didn't read to the end.

But to bring things full circle, let's come back to another lame joke byMcKinnon, a comment from June 28 with the surprising title: " Obama's not acitizen, and I prove it ." He writes:

Even if we assume that Barack Obama's father is unknown, even iswe assume that the father was not a citizen and was a alien fromanother country or planet, the following statement is still false:

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 wouldnot suffice to make him a "natural born citizen." (Reuven Koret,IsraelInsider)

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 Statesand its outlying possessions of parents one of whom is an alien,and the other a citizen of the United States who, prior to the birthof such person, was physically present in the United States or itsoutlying possessions for a period or periods totaling not less thanfive years, at least two of which were after attaining the age of fourteen years;"

McKinnon then launches into a convoluted and rambling discourse on whatStanley Ann Dunham would have had to do to avoid being in the country. Theonly trouble is that the law he cites refers to children born after 1986. Here isthe 1952 law in question, applicable to those born between 1952 and 1986:

The Immigration and Nationality Act of June 27, 1952, 66 Stat. 163, 235, 8U.S. Code Section 1401 (b). (Section 301 of the Act). "Section 301. (a) Thefollowing shall be nationals and citizens of the United States at birth: "(1) aperson born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof; ..."(7) a person born outside the geographical limits of the United States and itsoutlying possessions of parents one of whom is an alien, and the other acitizen of the United States, who prior to the birth of such person, wasphysically present in the United States or its outlying possessions for a periodor periods totaling not less than ten years, at least five of which were afterattaining the age of fourteen years.


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So my earlier quote and argument stands, and McKinnon's attempt to proveObama is a natural born citizen by virtue of his mother US citizenship goes theway of his other lame jokes. It's one thing for a document specialist to useMicrosoft Paint, but if you're going to be lazy in your research, at least don'tbe so smug about it.

Once again we get to the main point, that even those who are inclined tobelieve that Kos of all the blog sites in the world had access to the paperObama birth certificate and faithfully scanned it. If Obama has the proof of hisHawaiian origin, now is the time to produce it. Because the legal standard, letalone skeptical public opinion, isn't going to be satisfied by what appears onDaily Kos, because even the DHS-trained document analyst says whatcommon sense and Hawaii statutes tell us -- a JPEG image has no legalvalidity. Obama's eligibility to be President thus hangs on a thread: the needto prove he has a valid paper Hawaiian birth certificate, signed, sealed anddelivered.

With all due respect to those who claim that they have " busted " the imageanalysis of one or another of the birth certificate blogger-skeptics, powerfully

joined most recently by " techdude " on Atlas Shrugs (which previouslyrejected the fake birth certificate thesis) they are missing the point.

It isn't the obligation of a journalist or a blogger or an imaging professional ora DHS-trained self-proclaimed document specialist to disprove that Obama isa natural born citizen. Obama owes it to the American people: he is requiredby the Constitution to fulfill that condition and to do that every citizen mustdo from time to time: produce the birth certificate. He prides himself ontransparency, so why is he concealing and stonewalling legitimate demands forproof of? If he lacks one, and can't prove he has one, he can't be President.He wrote about having one in his book, Dreams from My Father (Chapter One)and he presumably had to have one to get a passport. So what's the problem?Why the hesitation?

Yesterday the National Review Online, which got this whole thing rolling with arequest for Obama's birth certificate, a request supposed fulfilled by Daily Kos,weighed in again for the first time in weeks:

Is There Legitimate Doubt About Obama's Eligibility to bePresident? [Andy McCarthy]I had not caught up until today with this apparent controversy overwhether the Hawaii birth certificate proffered by Obama's campaignis a forgery and whether there are legitimate questions aboutwhether he was born in the United States -- if he wasn't, healmost certainly would not be qualified under the Constitution andrelevant immigration statutes to be president. Our Jim Geraghtyseemed to pooh-pooh the birth certificate controversy about aweek ago, but according to the above cited report (at a site calledDougRoss@Journal) and a new one from Israel Insider , there arenew developments, and the Obama campaign appears to bestonewalling. Shouldn't it be a fairly easy matter to prove he wasborn in Hawaii if he really was? Why wouldn't Obama just end thisquickly?

Obama's " Fight the Smears " website, at least on this subject, is anembarrassment. Just look at it. As if when Hawaii became a state is at all anissue, or as if the 14th Amendment of the Constitution has anything to do withthe criteria for a natural born citizen. And, really, what is the point of puttingup a low-resolution image of an image that could be mocked up by anybodywith Microsoft Paint and 10 minutes on their hands? No explanation, noprovenance information, no reason to believe in its veracity.


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Why, indeed, does not Obama make this issue go away? At this point, there'sno good reason -- unless he doesn't have a birth certificate, or has one hefeels compelled to hide. But now, after more than three weeks, with theaffirmations of his campaign spokesman that the Fight the Smears birthcertificate image is "real", he is in an even tighter corner: the real paper birthcertificate of the candidate for President had better look a lot like the one onthe web site, or he'll have a lot of explaining to do.

It is a matter of time now before a legal challenge is issued in one of the 50states, or the call for paper proof is issued by a major pundit, publication, orpolitical figure. The longer the candidate waits, the higher the risk.

It's unlikely that this time Jay McKinnon's excuse of "lame joke" will passmuster for Barack Obama.

This is the fifth of a series on the birth certificate. Dear Obama campaign, canyou 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 articlesabout Barack Obama and his mysterious background are linked on the upper left of this article.




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tlas Shrugs

riday, July 04, 2008

XCLUSIVE: Atlas Tech Expert Declares Obama Birth Certificate Forgery

his bombshell was made by Atlas reader techdude in the comment section (oh and btw, techdude, send the screenshots):

As a real forensic computer investigator (board certified, investigated thousands of cases, access to a full forensiccomputer lab, yadda yadda...) I decided to jump into the fray over the fake vs real discussion a week ago when a friend

of mine challenged me to see what I could find (since according to him, the document was clearly a real one). He is what one would call a slightly rabid Obama supporter he even has the tattoo to prove it.

First things first...I used the latest online KOS version (downloaded 6/29/2008) as it was supposedly the first releaseddigital copy and the Decosta certificate from Israel Insider's blog (also downloaded 6/29/2008) as an exemplar of a realcertificate.

Of forensic interest on the KOS version is the EXIF metadata (encoded in the digital image data) showing that the KOScertificate was modified or created with "Adobe Photoshop CS3 Macintosh" on "2008:06:12 08:42:36". Assuming theEXIF data was added after the document was scanned (assuming it is real) and the document modified only by placing a black-out section over the Certificate Number or if it was converted and saved for web use this would not be toounusual. The Daily KOS released the story on 2008:06:12 08:44:37 which would be 2 minutes after the graphic's EXIFstamp was created.

Before I became a forensic geek I worked for [a herein nameless publicly traded company] that designed counterfeitdetection hardware and software for the banking and retail industry. The company was very high profile and we receivedtraining from [a certain herein nameless department of the Federal government that knows a thing or two aboutcounterfeiting] - but I do not claim to be an all around expert in Questioned Documents but after several years of working with them I do know what to look for to spot an obvious fake.

That being said...I too was able to see "something" that looked like a seal - however even using highly specializedsoftware (specifically designed for law enforcement and forensic examiner use for cleaning up digital images and video)I was unable to recover anything more than what others have previously released using a basic find edges andmodification of the contrast. Even when the background security paper pattern was removed there was not enough of a"seal" to view anything usable or verifiable which is a bit odd but still might be possible if the seal had been completely flattened out in the mail, etc. There is also a fold which runs vertically across the top of the certificate which is close tothe same location on the Decosta certificate.

At this point I was beginning to believe the certificate was real until I resized and overlaid the Decosta certificate on topof the KOS version. All things being equal there was a 3.82% difference in the size of the KOS version vs the Decostacertificate - but again depending on the optical distortion from the scanner this too was explainable. But upon manually stretching them to match edge to edge I caught a glimpse of what I and apparently everyone else had simply not noticed.The security borders do not match. Literally. They are not even close to identical. For instance "Decosta" contains five

10 pixel wide "diamonds" per vertical row while the "KOS Obama" contains 2 to 2 1/4 36 pixel wide diamonds per vertical row. These differences can clearly be observed even with the naked eye although you may need to enlarge thegraphics on your screen. Taking the measurements further - Decosta's "Certification of Live Birth" heading is centered between security diamond pattern and is 762 pixels wide @ 0% angle while Obama's "Certification of Live Birth"heading is not centered evenly between security diamond pattern and is 794 pixels wide @ 0% angle. Decosta's "Any Alterations" footer is centered evenly between security diamond pattern and is 1244 pixels wide @ 0% angle whileObama's "Any Alterations" footer is not centered evenly between security diamond pattern and is 1294 pixels wide @0% angle. I kept the comparative screen shots in case anyone wants them.

I am unable to explain the differences between the security diamond sizes and counts and the un -centered portions(meaning the diamond pattern ends on an odd pattern instead of even where it meets the edges of the header andfooter boxes). Looking closer at the KOS certificate (magnified to 400%) clearly shows inconsistencies in the security border such as cut and paste marks and overlaying of the side borders where they meet the top and bottom. This effectis not observed in the Decosta certificate at any magnification. Another point of interest, removing the backgroundsecurity pattern did not remove the background area from underneath the security border on the KOS certificate. The


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color and hue values of the background pattern located and viewable through the security border are also not a match tothe rest of the certificate background. I can not explain these discrepancies. I then noticed there were some indicationsthat the background pattern had been duplicated and placed in various locations to clean up the document. Now atsome point I just started to laugh and went out for a smoke and gave up looking for more.

I am convinced that the certificate is a fake (and not really a very good one) and I went into this with a completely openmind (something the Obamanationalists seem to have lost). I also have to say that everyone who has been looking intothis federal crime (and it is a federal crime even if the certificates were never meant to be used for identification) havedone a stupendous job and I wish they all worked for my lab. Talk about a winning team.

PDATE: KOS released another birth certificate? How funny that cigar man calls me "this Geller character" :) You know togie ...... he helped me design my new banner.

togie, you funny

echdude sent me the screenshots: Analysis


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nalysis 2:


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nalysis 3


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echdude said, "Sorry about the image quality but damn it Jim I am a geek not a graphics junkie! (sorry...trekkie moment) Ielieve they should get the point across. The "cut & paste" artifacts are rather obvious in the "analysis3.jpg" as are theverlapping joints and gaps in the security borders".

** Copyright 2005-2008 Pamela Geller | All Rights Reserved *** (credit and link back to Atlas)

osted by Pamela Geller on Friday, July 04, 2008 at 11:15 PM in Obama's Birth Certificate Forgery, WHITE HOUSE: THEACE TO NOVEMBER | Permalink

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rackBack URL for this entry:tp://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/343429/30895956sted below are links to weblogs that reference EXCLUSIVE: Atlas Tech Expert Declares Obama Birth Certificate Forgery:

Blogger admits Hawaii birth certificate forgery, s from Don SingletonWhy doesn't the Obama campaign just release the real certificate? Is it because it would show Obama is not eligible to be president?Read More]

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We are still waiting. As I posted in a previous Obama BC post: Polarik over at Townhall.com has examined the supposed proof of rth, with the discerning eyes of one who has 20 years of working with computers, printers, and typewriters under hi... [Read More]

racked on Saturday, July 05, 2008 at 11:22 PMObama Birth Certificate Not Forged - All Claims Otherwise Are Fantasy from The Strata-Spheream really, really disappointed in ho

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