Experts agree
The doubters of Barack Obama’s birth certificate have pointed out that the State of Hawaii in its various statements and official verifications of the long-form Hawaii birth certificate released as a PDF file in April of 2011 decline to declare the White House image “identical” to the original, or to say that it is an “exact copy.” There is a growing consensus among experts that it is not, and cannot be identical to the original or an exact copy.
One expert is Kevin Davidson, a blogger who writes under the nom de Internet of Dr. Conspiracy. Davidson has over 35 years experience in the production of birth certificates and has worked on vital statistics information systems in 13 states. From the beginning Davidson has raised issues about the difference between whatever original document exists in Hawaii and what the White House released. He wrote on on his blog, Obama Conspiracy Theories, on April 27, 2011:
Finally, I want to comment on what the long form physically is. It is the original certificate from a bound volume photocopied (hence the curved edge) onto security paper. The date stamp and the state registrar’s stamp were then added below….
The original birth certificate, as noted by Davidson, was altered in at least four significant ways, possibly by the Hawaii Department of Health itself:
- Green basket weave security paper was added
- The Registrar’s stamp was added
- A date stamp was added
- Straight lines are changed to curves
In later articles Davidson, after reviewing photos taken of the paper document by NBC News White House Correspondent Savannah Guthrie, and after applying photo enhancement techniques to her photos, proved beyond doubt that further alteration was done to add the seal of the Hawaii Department of Health to the image of the vault copy.
Changes to the image
Beyond the changes and additions prior to the creation of the PDF noted by Davidson, other forensic documents experts have determined that White House PDF image itself had been altered.
Credentialed forensic document examiner Ivan Zatkovich in an April 29, 2011, report commissioned by WorldNetDaily, discussed his conversation with the Hawaii Department of Health in which they confirmed Davidson’s statement that the original in the department files was black on white paper, but Zatkovich added:
… my analysis indicates that there were modifications made to the PDF …
Most of the text in the document is surrounded by a white border which would not have been part of the Green copy produced by Hawaii. …
Only four days after the birth certificate was produced, two experts had found that it was not identical to the original!
Poorly done changes
Not only was the White House PDF version of Obama’s birth certificate altered, it was altered poorly, as indicated by internationally-recognized expert on electronic document processing, Ricardo de Queiroz of the University of Brazil. He wrote in an email to John Woodman:
The document has poor quality and it has been aggressively processed, no questions about it. The question is whether the corruptive processing was individual with the intent of forging it, or if it was automated within regular MRC segmentation.
If it was a forgery it was a very sloppy job. Any photoshop-knowledgeable person, of the garden variety, can do a much better job than that. If it is automated, it is a lousy job too, but bear in mind that algorithms for these jobs are not trained on specific documents. They were more likely developed, trained and tested on magazine pages and books. A US birth certificate is unlikely to give good results because it may be an outlier in the big picture of all documents they had in mind when developed their MRC tool.
Davidson added that the PDF processing converted gray-scale portions of the document to two-color bitmaps that resulted in the appearance of “TXE” in the Registrar’s stamp and the whimsical smiley face in Dr. Onaka’s signature.
Conclusion
It is clear from the testimony of three experts, one in vital records, one in forensic document examination, and one in computer processing of images, that the White House PDF image of Barack Obama’s Hawaiian birth certificate is not identical in appearance to the original in Hawaii.
As to the further question of forgery, these experts respond:
- Zatkovich: consistent with someone attempting to enhance the appearance of the document rather than change the content.
- de Queiroz: I do not see that.
- Davidson: Me neither.
As for the information on the certificate, Obama’s date of birth, place of birth and birth name, the State of Hawaii has verified that on multiple occasions, and those aspects of the original certificate are not in doubt.
Birthers state that Doc C has finally seen the light and writes an article wherein he agrees with other genuine experts that Obama’s long-form BC is forged in 3…2…1
🙂
I’ve never seen the obvious stated so well or so thoroughly. 😉
Ricardo de Queiroz of the University of Brazil: “If it was a forgery it was a very sloppy job. Any photoshop-knowledgeable person, of the garden variety, can do a much better job than that.”
Now I know why Orley incessantly claims in any hearing that even her kids can do a better job of a forgery than the White House. Of course, she conveniently ignored the “IF” at the beginning of Ricardo de Queiroz’s statement.
this is a message for Kevin Davidson, can you call me [phone number redacted]. I would like to talk to you and Mr. De Queroz and Mr. Zatkovich
I would further add that it appears that a large number of even the most rabid Obots have come to the conclusion that this so-called “PDF” is not and cannot be a legal certification of Obama’s birth.
And who says that it is? A certified copy, or a verification from the Hawaii DOH, would be, and anyone who has had a legal need for it, such as the Arizona Sec of State, got that verification.
So the evidence is ovewhelming, compared to that of the birthers, that Mr. Obama is a natural-born citizen eligible for the office he’s held for four years, and won for another four.
The people who didn’t accept evidence in the president’s favor voted against him, but they lost. So deal with it!
*sigh*
What the?
It doesn’t matter if it’s a computer scan of a photocopy of a crayon drawing of an Abstract of Birth Records; once it has been verified by the State of Hawai’i, the discussion is over. This is settled law.
Of course not….Hawaii sent Obama the certified copy which contained exactly the information about his birth in the USA….so what’s your beef?
So dry. Châteauneuf-du-Pape.
After all this time she is now interested in talking … I assume because she didn’t ‘get’ what you’re saying here? Were you able to explain the (not-so) subtle distinctions involved? Other that the ironic presentation here, you haven’t said anything new that ‘obots’ haven’t stated a million times since 2008.
When worded a certain way, it lit up the Flying Monkey’s confirmation bias?
If you’re really Orly Taitz…..Depakote is really a very effective meds for your kind of affliction!
With reference to the “green basket weave security paper” used for printing Obama’s b/c, this was in compliance with a federal law enacted under Bush in 2004:
Under the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, Public Law 108-458, December 17, 2004, 7211(b)(3)(A), 118 Stat. 3826, reprinted in the Official Notes to 5 USC 301, all states are required to issue their birth certificates on “safety paper” which is “Designed to prevent tampering, counterfeiting, or otherwise duplicating the birth certificate for fraudulent purposes.”
One of the characteristics – indeed, a deliberate goal – of the anti-counterfeiting anti-falsification pattern in the security paper is to frustrate computer photo-processing software; this has obviously been achieved by the paper used by Hawaii because the “evidence” used by the birfers — consisting of affidavits from people who tried to analyze the internet image of the b/c using Photoshop or similar software – is that the software gave anomalous readings.
The paper document that someone in the White House scanned to make the internet image is a bona fide birth certificate, but the internet image itself is not. Some people evidently have trouble grasping that distinction.
I have no beef. I was heading in what I thought was a similar direction to a blog post I’d read, keying off the obsession by certain birthers over the State of Hawaii declining to declare the White House image “identical” to the original BC, or to say that it is an “exact copy.” The author of the post noted that there is a growing consensus among experts that it is not, and cannot be identical to the original or an exact copy–not because the author had a beef, but to drily make a point.
So I made a reply in a similar vein, because I figured that in the context of that post, it would be obvious that I too was trying to point out the absurdities of the birther position. Wacky hijinks then failed to ensue. So, sorry about that.
I totally understand you pal! It’s I who should apologize…one beer too many must I say. ha ha. I must say though…that there’s so much talk about birth certificate forgery…How can somebody say forgery (like Arpaio) if they only look at an internet image?…They can talk all about layers blah blah blah. But if they’ve not seen, touch, feel the certified copy issued to Obama by Hawaii then they lose the argument..
As I write this now (here on the internet) can you say that what “Saint James” writes is a forgery?
Arpaio is STUPID!
If Hawaii sent him a certified copy, why did somebody post a forged, computer generated, human altered image on WhiteHouse.gov ? For anybody else that would be a Federal Felony.
It’s a “forged image” only in the same way that a photograph of a person is a “botched clone.”
If you check Orly’s website, you’ll see how she can take a little bit of info and twist it to suit her delusional mindset. She remains clueless, Doc, despite you talking to her earlier today. There’s no way you can get through to someone like her because you’re not giving her the information she wants to hear. She’ll agree with you as long as you agree with her, otherwise, you’re just an Obot who is heading up the so-called “Obama technical defense” along with Fogbow.
An hour long conversation with Orly? My hat’s off to you, Doc! I’ll pour an extra drink in your honor this evening as I’m sure you need it by now.
It is obvious it is not created with a 1961 era typewriter. It is a cut and paste modern computer creation. One of the many people that have inspected the image, swore an affidavit that the digital fingerprints of the image traces back to a Photoshop program on an Apple computer.
No court-certified expert has sworn to any such thing; a few malcontented dilettantes with delusions of competency have seen exactly what they want to see, though. That is to whom you refer.
Of COURSE it’s a computer-generated image; that is what you get when you request your “birth certificate” today: a laser-printed abstract of the information. NO government agency is going to send you the ACTUAL certificate. Send away for your own “birth certificate” and you will see.
Now, since this abstract STILL didn’t satisfy the birthers (because nothing EVER will,) the President requested and received a photocopy of the ACTUAL birth certificate. It was certified to be a true and correct copy by the State of Hawai’i. And that settles the matter. Case closed, birthers were wrong all along.
Of course a PDF file saved in 2011 was not created with a 1961-era typewiter. I have a 1964 model … no “Save to PDF” option anywhere on that thing. Since the file format dates to the late ’90s, this is not surprising. I hear tell that even newfangled electric typer-writers can’t produce a PDF.
You are completely correct. More or less.
Well, damn. That shit is settled then, ain’t it?
An Apple computer? Really?
No, the digital fingerprints trace back to Mac OS X 10.6.7 Quartz PDFContext, not Adobe Photoshop. The affidavit of Douglas Vogt (http://www.scribd.com/doc/58721290/Obama-Birth-Certificate-Final-Affidavit-of-Douglas-Vogt-June-24-2011-Total-of-9-items-now-listed as well as any computer user) says this. Do you have a link to a different affidavit that says Photoshop? We deal in source data here.
None of the so-called experts have compared this image to an another Hawaii birth certificate from the same era. That is a critical step to support any claim that this birth certificate is a forgery.
You don’t get to ask WHY…You damn birthers need to realize that you can not and will not be able to ascertain if what you see on the internet is FAKE…YOU CAN NOT DO IT…NOBODY CAN. You can discuss about layers, halos blah bla blah….but if you did not see the ORIGINAL CERTIFIED COPY…there is nothing that you can compare your findings.
Here is the bottom line….Obama posted the COLB (no colb can be issued without certification) from Hawaii…it was certifed and attested to for two times. All the information that is needed matched….Obama is NBC..(even if Obama was born in Kenya…he is still NBC…let’s discuss this later)!
Now…since we’re on the internet…I accuse you that what you wrote is a forgery…in that you WeekendWarrior is not actually weekendwarior but your 3 year old niece. Can you disprove my allegation?
This is not how our jurisprudence works…It’s incumbent upon you to prove that what was posted on the internet and the information that it contained was changed or altered.
However, you do not have any control of what was issued to Obama and the information it contained as certified by the State of Hawaii
Read “FULL FAITH ND CREDIT CLAUSE OF THE CONSTITUTION”
i’M SO FUCKING TIRED OF YOU….YOU NEED TO BE BANNED
Please stay in your echo chamber and continue to deceive your self!
“As for the information on the certificate, Obama’s date of birth, place of birth and birth name, the State of Hawaii has verified that on multiple occasions, and those aspects of the original certificate are not in doubt.”
As long as that’s true, none of this other stuff really matters, right?
This issue has always struck me as the craziest stunt pulled out by birthers.
As pointed out many times, it is the information that matters, ie: if the State of HI says Obama was born there, the discussion should stop. The piece of paper hardly matters, except as a convenience or tangible record. And even less so digital copies of said paper, which are utterly irrelevant.
You can get that option by updating your firmware. 😉
And then why did Hawaii post a link on its own official website to that very same Whitehouse PDF? For anybody else that would be Hawaii standing by the validity of that PDF’s information. Things that make you go hmmm.
Hmmm. How is that a felony again? A ‘federal’ felony?
I would agree with you, Lupin, but my adopted name tells me I must protest: it is only the *paper* that matters. Don’t you know. The information is irrelevant. Because you know it’s not true, everyone knows that it isn’t true. But the paper! Yes, the paper, a collector’s item! I wouldn’t be surprised if it is put in a special library someday. 😉
In fact, not even the paper matters. Only properly delineated authority matters.
Consider: Suppose Hawaii had failed to heed the warnings of geologists and built their dept. of health records archive on the side of a volcano. The volcano erupts in 1969 and vaporizes all original files.
BHO runs for President, but outside of the newspaper birth notices and anecdotal testimony, he has no evidence of his birthplace and time. All that would matter would be whether or not CONGRESS believes he meets the eligibility requirements.
Period.
No court cases, no SS#s, no halos, no pdf’s, no Onaka, no Fuddy, no Orly.
Does Congress accept that he is eligible? Yes? Then he is.
By the way, Doc… The editing feature doesn’t work on iPhones or iPads.
It does, but it is very quirky and unreliable and a pain.
In which case, obviously, everybody whose birth records were lost in that volcano would lose their citizenship! 😉
Here’s what I mean: if you put the cursor in a passage, it will not delete letters and add others. Once it does this, it won’t add anything at the end either. And it often brings up the Cut Copy Paste balloon when you place the cursor, and won’t accept text.
Not sure if Doc can do anything; I suspect not, but thought I’d call it in.
That’s basically my experience as well.
I have used the example of a tsunami, rather than a volcano before (because the active volcanos in Hawaii are on the big island, not Oahu), but either will do I would contend that if one was born in a place where records were destroyed or were never kept, the default for one’s place of birth would be where one’s mother lived, since births away from the mother’s area of residence are quite rare. This would be equally true for a President as for a plumber.
Mine, too…exactly.
I not only do not believe that Obama is a natural citizen of the U. S., I believe that he was “cloned” by space aliens, who are fallen angels!
Obama has a clone? As in, there are TWO Obamas out there? Oh, Orly’s NOT gonna be happy about this…