Clearing the Smoke on Obama’s Eligibility: An Intelligence Investigator’s June 10 Report

This site should clear up any question about our fearless "leader's" qualifications. You gotta see this. Be sure to check out the 5th way to get a Hawaiian birth certificate, where you can apply for one yourself as an adult. Now that would never happen would it??? He is a specialist in Constitution law and investigated how to avoid giving his birth certificate years before he ran for President. Do you think he just might have found the way around a real birth certificate and filed for one himself? Certainly an interesting thought if he had need for one to cover up his Nigerian birth.

http://www.westernjournalism.com/?page_id=2697


Clearing the Smoke on Obama’s Eligibility: An Intelligence Investigator’s June 10 Report

Editors Note: In December ‘08 a retired CIA officer commissioned an investigator to look into the Barack Obama birth certificate and eligibility issue. On July 21, 2009 westernjournalism.com obtained a copy of the investigator’s report. Here is an unedited version of the report.

June 10, 2009 Report, updated July 18, 2009

The Territorial Public Health Statistics Act in the 1955 Revised Laws of Hawaii

I think that I now understand the legal background to the question of where Obama was born.

Let’s begin with the statement that Dr. Chiyome Fukino, the Director of the Hawaii Department of Health released on October 31, 2008. The television and print media used this statement as a reason to prevent and treat with contempt any investigation into whether Barack Obama was not born in Hawaii. But the language of the statement was so carefully hedged and guarded that it should have had the opposite effect.

“There have been numerous requests for Sen. Barack Hussein Obama’s official birth certificate. State law (Hawaii‘s Revised Statutes §338-18) prohibits the release of a certified birth certificate to persons who do not have a tangible interest in the vital record. Therefore, I as Director of Health for the State of Hawaii, along with the Registrar of Vital Statistics who has statutory authority to oversee and maintain these type of vital records, have personally seen and verified that the Hawaii State Department of Health has Sen. Obama’s original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures.”

It is understandable that after such an apparently definitive statement most news outlets, whether conservative or liberal, would accept this as sufficient grounds to relegate the controversy to the status of a fringe phenomenon. Unless they happened to take the trouble to look into the “state policies and procedures” as laid down by the relevant statutes. If they had done so, they would have seen that Dr. Fukino’s press release was carefully hedged and “lawyered” and practically worthless. But the media in general should not be faulted. The statement seems to roll out with such bureaucratic certainty and final authority. I believed it to be significant until a Honolulu attorney mailed me the relevant statutes. I was so surprised that I laughed out loud.

Here is a summary of Hawaii’s “state policies and procedures” in 1961.

In the State of Hawaii, back in 1961, there were four different ways to get an “original birth certificate” on record. They varied greatly in their reliability as evidence. For convenience, I’ll call them BC1, BC2, BC3, and BC4.

BC1. If the birth was attended by a physician or mid wife, the attending medical professional was required to certify to the Department of Health the facts of the birth date, location, parents’ identities and other information. (See Section 57-8 & 9 of the Territorial Public Health Statistics Act in the 1955 Revised Laws of Hawaii which was in effect in 1961).

Actual long form Birth Certificate similar to one Obama refuses to release
Actual long form Certificate of Live Birth similar to one Obama refuses to release

BC2. In 1961, if a person was born in Hawaii but not attended by a physician or midwife, then all that was required was that one of the parents send in a birth certificate to be filed. The birth certificate could be filed by mail. There appears to have been no requirement for the parent to actually physically appear before “the local registrar of the district.” It would have been very easy for a relative to forge an absent parent’s signature to a form and mail it in. In addition, if a claim was made that “neither parent of the newborn child whose birth is unattended as above provided is able to prepare a birth certificate, the local registrar shall secure the necessary information from any person having knowledge of the birth and prepare and file the certificate.” (Section 57-8&9) I asked the Dept of Health what they currently ask for (in 2008) to back up a parent’s claim that a child was born in Hawaii. I was told that all they required was a proof of residence in Hawaii (e.g. a driver’s license [We know from interviews with her friends on Mercer Island in Washington State that Ann Dunham had acquired a driver’s license by the summer of 1961 at the age of 17] or telephone bill) and pre-natal (statement or report that a woman was pregnant) and post-natal (statement or report that a new-born baby has been examined) certification by a physician. On further enquiry, the employee that I spoke to informed me that the pre-natal and post-natal certifications had probably not been in force in the ‘60s. Even if they had been, there is and was no requirement for a physician or midwife to witness, state or report that the baby was born in Hawaii.

BC3. In 1961, if a person was born in Hawaii but not attended by a physician or midwife, then, up to the first birthday of the child, a “Delayed Certificate” could be filed, which required that “a summary statement of the evidence submitted in support of the acceptance for delayed filing or the alteration [of a file] shall be endorsed on the certificates”, which “evidence shall be kept in a special permanent file.” The statute provided that “the probative value of a ‘delayed’ or ‘altered’ certificate shall be determined by the judicial or administrative body or official before whom the certificate is offered as evidence.” (See Section 57- 9, 18, 19 & 20 of the Territorial Public Health Statistics Act in the 1955 Revised Laws of Hawaii which was in effect in 1961).”

[In other words, this form of vault birth certificate, the Delayed Certificate, required no more than a statement before a government bureaucrat by one of the parents or (the law does not seem to me clear on this) one of Barack Obama’s grandparents. If the latter is true, Ann Dunham did not have to be present for this statement or even in the country.]

BC4. If a child is born in Hawaii, for whom no physician or mid wife filed a certificate of live birth, and for whom no Delayed Certificate was filed before the first birthday, then a Certificate of Hawaiian Birth could be issued upon testimony of an adult (including the subject person [i.e. the birth child as an adult]) if the Office of the Lieutenant Governor was satisfied that a person was born in Hawaii, provided that the person had attained the age of one year. (See Section 57-40 of the Territorial Public Health Statistics Act in the 1955 Revised Laws of Hawaii which was in effect in 1961.) In 1955 the “secretary of the Territory” was in charge of this procedure. In 1960 it was transferred to the Office of the Lieutenant Governor (“the lieutenant governor, or his secretary, or such other person as he may designate or appoint from his office” §338-41 [in 1961]).

Certification of Live Birth, released by Obama
Certification of Live Birth, released by Obama

In 1982, the vital records law was amended to create a fifth kind of “original birth certificate”. Under Act 182 H.B. NO. 3016-82, “Upon application of an adult or the legal parents of a minor child, the director of health shall issue a birth certificate for such adult or minor, provided that the proof has been submitted to the director of health that the legal parents of such individual while living without the Territory or State of Hawaii had declared the Territory or State of Hawaii as their legal residence for at least one year immediately preceding the birth or adoption of such child.” In this way “state policies and procedures” accommodate even “children born out of State” (this is the actual language of Act 182) with an “original birth certificate on record.” So it is even possible that the birth certificate referred to by Dr Fukino is of the kind specified in Act 182. This possibility cannot be dismissed because such a certificate certainly satisfies Dr Fukino’s statement that “I as Director of Health for the State of Hawaii‘i, along with the Registrar of Vital Statistics who has statutory authority to oversee and maintain these type of vital records, have personally seen and verified that the Hawaii‘i State Department of Health has Sen. Obama’s original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures.” If this is the case, Dr Fukino would have perpetrated so unusually disgusting a deception that I find it practically incredible (and I greatly doubt that anyone could be that shameless). On the other hand, if the original birth certificate is of types 2, 3, or 4, Dr Fukino’s statement would be only somewhat less deceptive and verbally tricky. I only bring up this possibility to show how cleverly hedged and “lawyered” and basically worthless Dr Fukino’s statement is.

Sections 57-8, 9, 18, 19, 20 & 40 of the Territorial Public Health Statistics Act explain why Barack Obama has refused to release the original vault birth certificate. If the original certificate were the standard BC1 type of birth certificate, he would have allowed its release and brought the controversy to a quick end. But if the original certificate is of the other kinds, then Obama would have a very good reason not to release the vault birth certificate. For if he did, then the tape recording of Obama’s Kenyan grandmother asserting that she was present at his birth in Kenya becomes far more important. As does the Kenyan ambassador’s assertion that Barack Obama was born in Kenya, as well as the sealing of all government and hospital records relevant to Obama by the Kenyan government. And the fact that though there are many witnesses to Ann Dunham’s presence on Oahu from Sept 1960 to Feb 1961, there are no witnesses to her being on Oahu from March 1961 to August 1962 when she returned from Seattle and the University of Washington. No Hawaiian physicians, nurses, or midwives have come forward with any recollection of Barack Obama’s birth.

The fact that Obama refuses to release the vault birth certificate that would instantly clear up this matter almost certainly indicates that the vault birth certificate is probably a BC2 or possibly a BC3.

It is almost certainly a BC 3 or even a BC 4 if the “Certification of Live Birth” posted on the Daily Kos blog and the fightthesmears.com website by the Obama campaign is a forgery. Ron Polarik has made what several experts claim to be a cogent case that it is a forgery. There have been a couple of attempts to refute his argument and Polarik has replied to the most extensive of them. I do not claim expertise in this area, but I think it would be best for journalists and politicians to familiarize themselves with the arguments on both sides before they casually dismiss Polarik’s position without taking the trouble to understand it.

Here are 2 of Polarik’s websites: http://bogusbirthcertificate.blogspot.com/

http://bogusbithcertificate.blogspot.com/

Because the disputants know far more about this subject than I do, I am an agnostic about Polarik’s argument. However, the likelihood that this computer-generated “Certification of Live Birth” was forged, is, I believe, increased by the fact that it has been pretty clearly established that Obama “either didn’t register for the draft or did so belatedly and fraudulently. The documents indicate that it’s one or the other.” http://www.debbieschlussel.com/archives/004431print.html The forgery of Obama’s selective service registration was necessary, because according to Federal law, “A man must be registered to be eligible for jobs in the Executive Branch of the Federal government and the U.S. Postal Service. This applies only to men born after December 31, 1959.” http://usmilitary.about.com/cs/wars/a/draft2.htm)

It is also very strange that Dr Fukino’s statement in no way attested to (or even addressed the issue of) the authenticity of the “Certification of Live Birth” (and the information that appears on it) that the Daily Kos blog and the Obama campaign posted on line. Dr Fukino merely stated that “I as Director of Health for the State of Hawaii‘i, along with the Registrar of Vital Statistics who has statutory authority to oversee and maintain these type of vital records, have personally seen and verified that the Hawaii‘i State Department of Health has Sen. Obama’s original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures.”

If there is no hospital or physician record in the vault birth certificate, then he wasn’t born in a hospital in Hawaii. And a home birth or non-hospital birth can then be ruled out for the following reason.

When someone has a home birth or is not born in a hospital, this becomes a part of his family’s lore and is now and again spoken of by his parents. He and his siblings grow up knowing that he was born at home or his uncle’s house, etc. The fact that someone in the campaign told a Washington Post reporter that he was born in Kapioliani hospital and his sister said he was born at Queens hospital indicates that there was not and is not any Obama/Dunham family memory of a home birth or non-hospital birth in Hawaii.

And if there is no hospital record in the original vault birth certificate, then he was not born in a hospital in Hawaii.

Instead of the birth certificate on file at the Hawaii Dept of Health, the Obama campaign posted on the Daily Kos blog and the Fightthesmears website a “Certification of Live Birth”. The Certification of Live Birth is not a copy of the original birth certificate. It is a computer-generated document that the state of Hawaii issues on request to indicate that a birth certificate of some type is “on record in accordance with state policies and procedures”. And there is the problem. Given the statutes in force in 1961, the Certification of Live Birth proves nothing unless we know what is on the original birth certificate. There are several legal areas (involving ethnic quotas and subsidy) for which the state of Hawaii up until June 2009 did not accept its computer-generated Certification of Live Birth as sufficient proof of birth in Hawaii or parentage. Why should the citizens of the United States be content with lower standards for ascertaining the qualifications of their President?

If you combine an awareness of what the Certification of Live Birth posted on the internet really is with 1) a knowledge of the relevant statutes in 1961 and 2) Obama’s stubborn refusal to permit the release of the real birth certificate and his determination to fight any legal actions that would compel him to do so, it becomes clear that there is no logical explanation for Obama’s refusal without taking into consideration the relevant statutes. Then his behavior becomes clear. The Territorial Public Health Statistics Act in the 1955 Revised Laws of Hawaii is the missing piece of the puzzle.

Most people think of a birth certificate as a statement by a hospital or midwife with a footprint, etc. (That may be why some main-stream journalists have straight out lied about this. Jonathan Alter, senior editor at Newsweek magazine, for example, told Keith Olbermann on MSNBC on Feb 20, 2009 that “They [the Republicans] are a party that is out of ideas so they have to resort to these lies about the fact that he’s not a citizen. This came up during the campaign, Keith. The Obama campaign actually posted his birth certificate from a Hawaii hospital online.” But it is Alter who resorted to lying to the American people on television. “The Obama campaign” never “actually posted his birth certificate from a Hawaii hospital online.” On July 17, 2009 CNN’s Kitty Pilgrim lied when she stated that the Obama campaign had produced “the original birth certificate” on the internet and that FactCheck.org had examined the original birth certificate; whether it was forged or not, the Certification of Live Birth that was posted by the campaign and FactCheck.org is not, and by definition, cannot be the original birth certificate or a copy of the original birth certificate. There were no computer generated Certifications of Live Birth in 1961, the year Obama was born. Obama’s original birth certificate (whether it was filed in 1961 or later) was a very different document from the Certification of Live Birth on FactCheck.org. On the FactCheck.org web site, the claim is made that “FactCheck.org staffers have now seen, touched, examined and photographed the original birth certificate.” So FactCheck.org is lying about this as well.

FactCheck.org gets its prestige from a reputation for objectivity. Why would those who run this site choose to tell so obvious a lie and so endanger the site’s reputation? The answer is in the date of the posting, August 21, 2008. It was in mid-August that questions about the Certification of Live Birth began to reach a critical mass and threaten to enter the public discourse. The mostly pro-Obama television and newspaper/magazine media had to be given an excuse and cover for their collective decision to dismiss or ignore the substantial questions about whether Obama met the qualifications for the office set forth in Article II section I of the Constitution. And those reporters and editors who were not in the tank for Obama had to be deceived. After Labor Day the swing voters would begin to pay attention to the Presidential campaign. The truth had to be killed. And with its lie about “how it examined and photographed the original birth certificate“, FactCheck.org killed it.)

Most people would not consider a mailed-in form by one of his parents (who could have been out of the country or whose signature could have been forged by a grandparent) or a sworn statement by one of his grandparents or by his mother or even a sworn statement by himself many years later to be sufficient evidence (when set next to the statements by his maternal grandmother and the Kenyan ambassador that he was born in another country). Unless the American people are shown the original birth certificate, all of these are possibilities. And if Obama refuses to allow the state of Hawaii to release the original birth certificate, it begins to look like he was not born in a Hawaii hospital or at home with the assistance of a doctor or midwife. A reasonable person would acknowledge that there are serious reasons to doubt that Barack Obama was born in the United States. This is especially true because, if Obama was born in a foreign country, his family had a compelling reason to lie about it.

In 1961 if a 17 year old American girl gave birth in a foreign country to a child whose father was not an American citizen, that child had no right to any American citizenship, let alone the “natural born” citizenship that qualifies someone for the Presidency under Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution.

In 1961, the year that Barack Obama was born, under Sec. 301 (a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, Ann Dunham could not transmit citizenship of any kind to Barack Obama.

“ 7 FAM 1133.2-2 Original Provisions and Amendments to Section 301

(CT:CON-204; 11-01-2007)

“a. Section 301 as Effective on December 24, 1952: When enacted in 1952, section 301 required a U.S. citizen married to an alien to have been physically present in the United States for ten years, including five after reaching the age of fourteen, to transmit citizenship to foreign-born children. The ten-year transmission requirement remained in effect from 12:01 a.m. EDT December 24, 1952, through midnight November 13, 1986, and still is applicable to persons born during that period.

“As originally enacted, section 301(a)(7) stated: Section 301. (a) The following shall be nationals and citizens of the United States at birth: (7) a person born outside the geographical limits of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents one of whom is an alien, and the other a citizen of the United States who, prior to the birth of such person, was physically present in the United States or its outlying possessions for a period or periods totaling not less than ten years, at least five of which were after attaining the age of fourteen years: Provided, That any periods of honorable service in the Armed Forces of the United States by such citizen parent may be included in computing the physical presence requirements of this paragraph.”

The Immigration and Nationality Corrections Act (Public Law 103-416) on October 25, 1994 revised this law to accommodate “a person born outside the geographical limits of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents one of whom is an alien, and the other a citizen of the United States who, prior to the birth of such person, was physically present in the United States or its outlying possessions for a period or periods totaling not less than five years, at least two of which were after attaining the age of fourteen years”.

But in 1961, if Barack Obama had been born outside of the country, the Dunham family had no way of knowing that in 1994 Congress would pass a law that would retroactively make him a citizen. At that time, the only way to get citizenship for him would be to take advantage of one of the loopholes in the Territorial Public Health Statistics Act.

People can debate the meaning of the term “natural-born citizen” as long as they like but this is clear: If, in 1961, 17 year old Ann Dunham gave birth to a child on foreign soil whose father was not an American citizen, then the Immigration and Nationality Act at that time denied Barack Obama any right to American citizenship of any kind. Therefore if at the time of his birth Obama was ineligible for American citizenship of any kind, then he cannot be a “natural-born citizen”. This is true even if the Immigration and Nationality Act was changed 33 years after he was born. Even if the law was retroactively changed to grant citizenship (but not “natural-born” citizenship) to some of those who had at birth been denied it. If a person is not at the time of his birth an American citizen, he cannot be a natural-born citizen. Therefore, that person is ineligible under Article II, Section1 for the Office of President of the United States.

It is only by examining the 18th century usage and definition of a term that we can ascertain its meaning in the Constitution. In the 18th century, and at the time of the framing and ratification of the Constitution by the states, the term “natural-born” subject or citizen was always used or defined in such a way as to exclude the child of a British or American girl or woman when that child was born in a foreign country and that child’s father was a foreign citizen. No 18th century jurist would have thought the term “natural-born” citizen or subject could have been extended to the child of a British or American girl or woman when that child was born in a foreign country and that child’s father was a foreign citizen.

Here is Blackstone’s classic exposition in 1765 of the legal meaning of the term from the Commentaries on the Laws of England.

William Blackstone, Commentaries 1:354, 357–58, 361–62

1765

“Natural-born subjects are such as are born within the dominions of the crown of England, that is, within the ligeance, or as it is generally called, the allegiance of the king; and aliens, such as are born out of it.. . .

“When I say, that an alien is one who is born out of the king’s dominions, or allegiance, this also must be understood with some restrictions. The common law indeed stood absolutely so; with only a very few exceptions: so that a particular act of parliament became necessary after the restoration, for the naturalization of children of his majesty’s English subjects, born in foreign countries during the late troubles. And this maxim of the law proceeded upon a general principle, that every man owes natural allegiance where he is born, and cannot owe two such allegiances, or serve two masters, at once. Yet the children of the king’s ambassadors born abroad were always held to be natural subjects: for as the father, though in a foreign country, owes not even a local allegiance to the prince to whom he is sent; so, with regard to the son also, he was held (by a kind of postliminium) to be born under the king of England’s allegiance, represented by his father, the ambassador. To encourage also foreign commerce, it was enacted by statute 25 Edw. III. st. 2. that all children born abroad, provided both their parents were at the time of the birth in allegiance to the king,…might inherit as if born in England: and accordingly it hath been so adjudged in behalf of merchants. But by several more modern statutes these restrictions are still farther taken off: so that all children, born out of the king’s ligeance, whose fathers were natural-born subjects, are now natural-born subjects themselves, to all intents and purposes, without any exception; unless their said fathers were attainted, or banished beyond sea, for high treason; or were then in the service of a prince at enmity with Great Britain.” [The italics are Blackstone's]

The irresponsible confirmation in the Senate of the irresponsible tallying of votes in the Electoral College does not supersede the clear meaning of Article II, Section 1. If it is allowed to stand, disregard of the Constitution by all branches of the government would be openly established. To all who believe that the Constitution is the government’s basic law, that the Constitution is the only instrument that gives the enactments of Congress and the commands of the Executive validity, it will be clear that the rule of law in the United States is a fiction.

Journalists and politicians complain that we must avoid a Constitutional crisis, but there already is a Constitutional crisis. It has been caused by Obama’s refusal to take the simple step to clear the matter up. The power of the Executive branch has been compromised. Its right to collect taxes and sign Congressional enactments into law, in fact all of its powers, have become problematic. Since their validity under Section I is now doubtful, they depend on the illegal exercise of force. Since officers of the American military take their oath on commissioning to the Constitution and not the President, their obedience to the Commander-in-Chief has lapsed and, if they challenge or resist his authority, any courts-martial will also be an illegal exercise of force. The only way out of the present Constitutional crisis is for Obama to do as McCain did when he was confronted by far less pressing doubts about the circumstances of his birth. He must disclose his vault birth certificate. Since the document has been so suspiciously withheld for so long, it should be subjected to rigorous forensic tests. Then whatever is on it should be judicially assessed together with the claims that have been made that Barack Obama was born on foreign soil.

It should be added that “Obama’s top terrorism and intelligence adviser, John O. Brennan, heads a firm that was cited in March for breaching sensitive files in the State Department’s passport office, according to a State Department Inspector General’s report released this past July.

“The security breach, first reported by the Washington Times and later confirmed by State Department spokesman Sean McCormack, involved a contract employee of Brennan’s firm, The Analysis Corp., which has earned millions of dollars providing intelligence-related consulting services to federal agencies and private companies.

“During a State Department briefing on March 21, 2008, McCormack confirmed that the contractor had accessed the passport files of presidential candidates Barack Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and John McCain, and that the inspector general had launched an investigation.

“Sources who tracked the investigation tell Newsmax that the main target of the breach was the Obama passport file, and that the contractor accessed the file in order to ‘cauterize’ the records of potentially embarrassing information.

“ ‘They looked at the McCain and Clinton files as well to create confusion,’ one knowledgeable source told Newsmax. ‘But this was basically an attempt to cauterize the Obama file.’

“At the time of the breach, Brennan was working as an unpaid adviser to the Obama campaign.

” ‘This individual’s actions were taken without the knowledge or direction of anyone at The Analysis Corp. and are wholly inconsistent with our professional and ethical standards,’ Brennan’s company said in a statement sent to reporters after the passport breach was made public.

“The passport files include ‘personally identifiable information such as the applicant’s name, gender, social security number, date and place of birth, and passport number,’ according to the inspector general report.

“The files may contain additional information including ‘original copies of the associated documents,’ the report added. Such documents include birth certificates, naturalization certificates, or oaths of allegiance for U.S.-born persons who adopted the citizenship of a foreign country as minors.”

“The State Department Office of Inspector General (OIG) issued a 104-page report on the breach last July. Although it is stamped ‘Sensitive but Unclassified,’ the report was heavily redacted in the version released to the public, with page after page blacked out entirely.”

http://www.newsmax.com/timmerman/brennan_passport_breach/2009/01/12/170430.html

The following may be relevant:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/apr/19/key-witness-in-passport-fraud-case-fatally-shot/

Key witness in passport fraud case fatally shot

Saturday, April 19, 2008

“A key witness in a federal probe into passport information stolen from the State Department was fatally shot in front of a District church, the Metropolitan Police Department said yesterday.

“Lt. Quarles Harris Jr., 24, who had been cooperating with a federal investigators, was found late Thursday night slumped dead inside a car, in front of the Judah House Praise Baptist Church in Northeast, said Cmdr. Michael Anzallo, head of the department’s Criminal Investigations Division.

“Cmdr. Anzallo said a police officer was patrolling the neighborhood when gunshots were heard, then Lt. Harris was found dead inside the vehicle, which investigators would describe only as a blue car.

“Emergency medics pronounced him dead at the scene.

“City police said they do not know whether his death was a direct result of his cooperation with federal investigators.

“We don’t have any information right now that connects his murder to that case,” Cmdr. Anzallo said.

“Police say a “shot spotter” device helped an officer locate Lt. Harris.

“A State Department spokeswoman yesterday declined to comment, saying the investigation into the passport fraud is ongoing.

“The Washington Times reported April 5 that contractors for the State Department had improperly accessed passport information for presidential candidates Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain, which resulted in a series of firings that reached into the agency’s top ranks.

“One agency employee, who was not identified in documents filed in U.S. District Court, was implicated in a credit-card fraud scheme after Lt. Harris told federal authorities he obtained “passport information from a co-conspirator who works for the U.S. Department of State.” “

There is a possibility that the breaches of the passport files associated with the “credit-card fraud scheme” were a cover for or associated with the breaches of the passport files by the employee of Brennan’s Analysis Corp. This certainly at least should be looked into.

July 11th Addendum to Report

1. Until June 2009, the reasonable doubts about where Obama was born could have quickly and finally been resolved if he had authorized the release by the Hawaiian Dept of Health of his original birth certificate or else applied for it himself and released it to the media. But as these doubts have increased and reached the point where they are no longer a “fringe” phenomenon, the Hawaiian state govt. has recently taken certain steps that would create procedural and possibly legal barriers to a resolution of the controversy. Given the slipperiness that characterized the statements of Chiyome Fukino, the Dept’s Director, and Janice Okubo, the Dept’s spokesperson, to the media on this issue, it is, I think, also reasonable to regard these steps with suspicion.

A family that I am acquainted with has a child who was born in Hawaii 6 months ago. They filled out and mailed in a form to the Dept of Health, as did their doctor. In return the Dept sent them in the first week of June, 2009, the same abbreviated computer-generated form that last year on the Daily Kos and subsequently on the Obama campaign web site was called a “Certification of Live Birth”. The form that this family received this year is identical in format to the Certification of Live Birth on the Daily Kos web site with one exception: the title at the top of the form.

On June 12, 2008 the title for this abbreviated form was Certification of Live Birth. The title for the form that this family received in the first week of June 2009 is Certificate of Live Birth. I called The Dept of Health and confirmed that the title of the form had been changed. The bureaucrat that I spoke to said the change had been made “recently”, but could not or would not tell me when. Sometime between June 12, 2008 and the first week of June 2009 the Hawaiian Dept of Health changed the title of this abbreviated form from “Certification of Live Birth” to “Certificate of Live Birth“. Why?

The use of the word “Certificate” rather than “Certification” makes the form feel somewhat more like a traditional birth certificate than the “Certification of Live Birth” that the Daily Kos website and subsequently the Obama campaign posted on the Internet even though, like the “Certification“, it also lacks any information about the hospital, doctor, or midwife. There is no footprint etc. This renaming of the document will be very convenient for the Hawaiian Dept of Health in future stonewalling should any legal pressure be brought against them to produce Obama’s “Certificate of Live Birth”. Instead of producing the original “Certificate of Live Birth”, they will produce the abbreviated “Certification of Live Birth” form that the Dept of Health has now renamed a “Certificate of Live Birth” and claim that they are doing so “in accordance with state policies and procedures” in the words of the Dept’s Director, Dr. Chiyome Fukino.

But whether it is called (as it was last year) a Certification or (as it is now) a Certificate of Live Birth this abbreviated document provides none of the probative information that was or wasn’t on Barack Obama’s original Certificate of Live Birth. Unlike the Certificate of Live Birth of the time when Barack Obama was born, this new Certificate of Live Birth provides no real evidence of where a child was born or indication of where such evidence might be found. It provides no information that would demonstrate to the people of the United States whether there is convincing evidence that he was actually born here or whether a relative or two (or possibly even Barack Obama himself) just made a statement to that effect to a low level bureaucrat. (As is permitted under Section 57-40 of the Territorial Public Health Statistics Act in the 1955 Revised Laws of Hawaii.)

2. On June 7, 2009, a spokeswoman for the Hawaii Department of Health told a rather obvious lie (or engaged in a pretty transparent verbal deception) in another attempt to discourage further investigation into the issue of whether Barack Obama was born on Oahu. “The state Department of Health no longer issues copies of paper birth certificates as was done in the past”, said spokeswoman Janice Okubo. “The department only issues ‘certifications’ of live births, and that is the ‘official birth certificate’ issued by the state of Hawaii, she said. ” [Honolulu Star Bulletin] http://www.starbulletin.com/columnists/kokualine/20090606_kokua_line.html

This statement was false or deliberately very misleading. Here, from a Hawaii state document that was posted on June 10, 2009, is a description of how to apply for “the original Certificate of Live Birth” (the original birth certificate) as opposed to the Certification of Live Birth:

“In order to process your application [to prove native Hawaiian ancestry], DHHL [Department of Hawaiian Homelands] utilizes information that is found only on the original Certificate of Live Birth, which is either black or green. This is a more complete record of your birth than the Certification of Live Birth (a computer-generated printout). Submitting the original Certificate of Live Birth will save you time and money since the computer-generated Certification requires additional verification by DHHL.

“Please note that DOH [Department of Health] no longer offers same day service. If you plan on picking up your certified DOH document(s), you should allow at least 10 working days for DOH to process your request(s), OR four to six weeks if you want your certified certificate(s) mailed to you.”

http://hawaii.gov/dhhl/applicants/appforms/applyhhl

Ms. Okubo’s statement gave the false impression that Obama could not gain access to or release “the original Certificate of Live Birth”, and that it was the DOH’s policy rather than his own reluctance that was responsible for the holding back of this Certificate. This was an obvious deception. The document at the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands website indicates that at the time she made this statement it was false, and that a procedure was in place for application for “the original Certificate of Live Birth.”

Only the information on the original birth certificate, “the original Certificate of Live Birth”, can demonstrate to the people of the United States whether there is convincing evidence that he was actually born here or whether a relative or two (or possibly even Barack Obama himself) just made a statement to that effect to a low level bureaucrat.

3. On July 8, 2009 the web site World Net Daily reported that “The state, which had excluded the controversial document [the Certification of Live Birth] as proof of native Hawaiian status, has changed its policy and now makes a point of including it.”

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=103408

Here is the new statement on the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands web site [July 8, 2009]. “The Department of Hawaiian Home Lands accepts both Certificates of Live Birth [original birth certificates and the recently renamed abbreviated computer printouts] and Certifications of Live Birth [as the abbreviated computer printouts were up till recently called] because they are official government records documenting an individual’s birth… Although original birth certificates (Certificates of Live Birth) are preferred for their greater detail, the State Department of Health (DOH) no longer issues Certificates of Live Birth. When a request is made for a copy of a birth certificate, the DOH issues a Certification of Live Birth.”

http://hawaii.gov/dhhl/applicants/appforms/applyhhl

The web site theobamafile.com picked up this significant change in procedure on the Dept of Hawaiian Homelands website on June 18, 2009. http://www.theobamafile.com/_BogusPOTUS/20090608.htm#HawaiiRuleChange

Sometime between June 10, 2009 and June 18, 2009 the State of Hawaii changed its rule on what documents and data were necessary to prove Hawaiian ancestry, thereby upgrading the apparent status of the abbreviated Certification of Live Birth which it had formerly regarded as insufficiently probative. Why?

4. On June 6, Janice Okubo, the Dept of Health spokeswoman, also told the Star Bulletin that “The electronic record of the birth is what (the Health Department) now keeps on file in order to provide same-day certified copies at our help window for most requests.” There is a troubling ambiguity in this statement. A sophisticated forensic investigation would probably be able to determine whether the original paper Certificate of Live Birth was forged, altered, or authentic. But if the data from the original paper Certificates of Live Birth has been transferred to an electronic record and then the original documents were discarded, part of the data could easily have been changed in the transfer or subsequently altered.
Why did the Hawaiian Dept of Health wait until June 6, 2009 to announce to the world that the original paper Certificates of Live Birth had been destroyed (presumably in 2001)? Shouldn’t this have been part of Dr Fukino’s statement on October 31, 2008 (right before the November election), a statement which deceptively implied the contrary:
“Therefore, I as Director of Health for the State of Hawaii‘i, along with the Registrar of Vital Statistics who has statutory authority to oversee and maintain these type of vital records, have personally seen and verified that the Hawaii‘i State Department of Health has Sen. Obama’s original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures.”
We know from a document posted on June 10, 2009 on the Department of Hawaiian Homelands website that, up until very recently, either the original paper Certificates of Live Birth or (as is now implied) scanned images of those paper certificates were maintained by the Dept of Health, and copies of them were provided to confirm claims of Hawaiian ancestry. But if in June 2009 the Department of Hawaiian Homelands has decided that it will no longer require the original Certificate of Live Birth as proof for special privileges and the Department of Health spokesman says firmly that they will no longer provide copies of these original certificates, is it possible that, in the midst of the controversy over where Barack Obama was born, the Hawaiian state govt has destroyed the original paper certificate of live birth? This seems almost incredible to me, but the authorities have been so deceptive and evasive on this issue, that it cannot be dismissed as impossible.
4. On June 6, Janice Okubo, the Dept of Health spokeswoman, also told the Star Bulletin that “The electronic record of the birth is what (the Health Department) now keeps on file in order to provide same-day certified copies at our help window for most requests.” There is a troubling ambiguity in this statement. A sophisticated forensic investigation would probably be able to determine whether the original paper Certificate of Live Birth was forged, altered, or authentic. But if the data from the original paper Certificates of Live Birth has been transferred to an electronic record and then the original documents were discarded, part of the data could easily have been changed in the transfer or subsequently altered.
Why did the Hawaiian Dept of Health wait until June 6, 2009 to announce to the world that the original paper Certificates of Live Birth had been destroyed (presumably in 2001)? Shouldn’t this have been part of Dr Fukino’s statement on October 31, 2008 (right before the November election), a statement which deceptively implied the contrary:
“Therefore, I as Director of Health for the State of Hawaii‘i, along with the Registrar of Vital Statistics who has statutory authority to oversee and maintain these type of vital records, have personally seen and verified that the Hawaii‘i State Department of Health has Sen. Obama’s original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures.”

We know from a document posted on June 10, 2009 on the Department of Hawaiian Homelands website that, up until very recently, either the original paper Certificates of Live Birth or (as is now implied) scanned images of those paper certificates were maintained by the Dept of Health, and copies of them were provided to confirm claims of Hawaiian ancestry. But if in June 2009 the Department of Hawaiian Homelands has decided that it will no longer require the original Certificate of Live Birth as proof for special privileges and the Department of Health spokesman says firmly that they will no longer provide copies of these original certificates, is it possible that, in the midst of the controversy over where Barack Obama was born, the Hawaiian state govt has destroyed the original paper certificate of live birth? This seems almost incredible to me, but the authorities have been so deceptive and evasive on this issue, that it cannot be dismissed as impossible.

Obama Presidential Eligibility - An Introductory Primer
Last revised: June 5, 2009

Abstract

Despite the mainstream news media's silence regarding this matter, an increasing number of Americans are concerned that Barack Obama might not be eligible, under the Constitution, to serve as President.

According to the U.S. Constitution, an individual born after 1787 cannot legally or legitimately serve as U.S. President unless he or she is a "natural born citizen" of the United States.

Among members of Congress and the mainstream news media, the consensus of opinion is that anyone born in the United States is a "natural born citizen". However, when we researched this issue a bit more carefully, we found that the consensus opinion is not consistent with American history.

In Minor v. Happersett (1874), the Supreme Court said that, if you were born in the United States and both of your parents were U.S. citizens at the time of your birth, you are, without doubt, a natural born citizen. In the same case, the Supreme Court also said that, if you were born in the United States and one of your parents was not a U.S. citizen when you were born, your natural born citizenship is in doubt. So far, the Supreme Court has not resolved this doubt because, until now, there has never been any need to do so.

With only two exceptions, every American President, who was born after 1787, was born in the United States, to parents who were both U.S. citizens. The two exceptions were Chester Arthur and Barack Obama. When Chester Arthur ran for office, the public did not know about his eligibility problem. Only recently did historians learn that, when Arthur was born, his father was not a U.S. citizen. The 2008 election was the first time in history that the United States knowingly elected a President who was born after 1787 and whose parents were not both U.S. citizens.

Barack Obama publicly admits that his father was not a U.S. citizen. According to Minor v. Happersett, there is unresolved doubt as to whether the child of a non-citizen parent is a natural born citizen. This doubt is not based on the imaginings of some tin-foil-hat-wearing conspiracy theorists on the lunatic fringe of society. This doubt comes from what the Supreme Court has actually said, as well as a variety of other historical and legal sources which are presented and discussed here.

This Primer introduces and explains the Obama Eligibility Controversy, in question-and-answer format, for a non-technical general audience. We've double-checked the facts presented here, and we've cited the sources of each fact.
Questions and Answers
1. What is a "birther"?
2. What are the eligibility requirements for President?
3. Why do birthers think Barack Obama is not eligible to be President?
4. How is "natural born citizen" defined?
5. In a nutshell, what is the Obama eligibility controversy?
6. Does the birthers' viewpoint have any historical or legal merit?
7. What was the original purpose of the presidential "natural born citizen" requirement?
8. What is the difference between a "Constitutional" and a "statutory" natural born citizen?
9. Wouldn't the most recent modern-day statutory meaning of "natural born citizen" take precedence over the original Constitutional meaning?
10. If Obama is not a "Constitutional natural born citizen", so what? Why should anyone care?
11. Why has every birther lawsuit been dismissed?
12. What is a 14th Amendment natural born citizen?
13. In the 14th Amendment, what does "jurisdiction" mean?
14. Doesn't the Wong Kim Ark decision make Obama a "natural born citizen"?
15. Doesn't the Julia Lynch case show that Obama is a "natural born citizen"?
16. Could "natural born citizen" be based on the British Common Law principle of jus soli?
17. What's the "beef" with President Obama's birth certificate?
18. Didn't the State of Hawaii recently verify that President Obama was born in Hawaii?
19. Doesn't the mere existence of Barack Obama's original Hawaiian birth certificate prove that he was born in Hawaii?
20. Do birthers actually believe that President Obama was born in a foreign country?
21. If President Obama's birth certificate shows conclusively that he was born in Hawaii, would it end the eligibility controversy?
22. Where do we go from here?

1. What is a "birther"?

News commentators and Internet bloggers invented the word "birther" as a term of derision and contempt towards people who question Barack Obama's presidential eligibility. Ironically, many birthers accepted the label and adopted it as their own. See, for example, The Birthers Web Site.

In this paper, "birther" does not refer to any particular group or organization. Rather, it refers respectfully to people who think Barack Obama is not eligible to serve as U.S. President.
2. What are the eligibility requirements for President?

Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the Constitution states:

No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

This means that, in modern times, you cannot legally or legitimately serve as President of the United States, unless you are:

* at least 35 years of age
* a resident of the United States for at least 14 years
* a natural born citizen.

Regarding the third requirement ("natural born citizen"), the Constitution made a special exception for people who were citizens when the Constitution was adopted. Such people did not need to be natural born citizens. Their pre-Constitution citizenship, by itself, was sufficient to meet the third requirement.

Today, this special exception is no longer applicable. No one alive today was a citizen when the Constitution was adopted. In modern times, if you wish to be President, it is not enough to be a U.S. citizen. You must be a natural born citizen in order to be "eligible to the Office of President".
3. Why do birthers think Barack Obama is not eligible to be President?

Birthers believe Barack Obama is not a natural born citizen and, for that reason alone, he is not eligible to serve as President. They say that, in order to be a natural born citizen, you must meet two requirements:

* You must be born in the United States; and
* Both of your parents must be U.S. citizens at the time of your birth.

According to birthers, it does not matter how your parents became U.S. citizens. They could have acquired citizenship at birth. They could have been immigrants who became citizens through naturalization. At one time in American history, a woman's citizenship was that of her husband. A woman became a U.S. citizen automatically when she married a man who was already a U.S. citizen. For you to be a natural born citizen, your parents had to be citizens at the time of your birth, but they did not have to be natural born citizens.

There is some question as to whether President Obama meets the first requirement. Unsubstantiated rumors suggest he might have been born in Kenya (Affidavit of Reverend Kweli Shuhubia, Affidavit of Bishop Ron McRae, and Interview with Kenyan Ambassador).

But far more importantly, Obama publicly admits he does not meet the second requirement. His father was a British subject who never became a U.S. citizen. (FactCheck.org: Does Barack Obama have Kenyan citizenship?)

At the time of this writing, to the best of our knowledge and belief, Barack Obama has referred to himself as a native born citizen but has never publicly claimed to be a "natural born citizen".
4. How is "natural born citizen" defined?
4.1 "Natural born citizen" is not defined in the Constitution or in any existing Federal law

The U.S. Constitution, and the Naturalization Acts of Massachusetts (1776-1790), use the term "natural born citizen" but do not define it.

So far, Congress has not passed any law that defines "natural born citizen". In 1790, Congress passed the Naturalization Act of 1790, which extended the meaning of "natural born citizen" to include the foreign-born children of U.S.-citizen parents:

And the children of citizens of the United States, that may be born beyond the sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born citizens (Naturalization Act of 1790)

Five years later, Congress repealed the 1790 Act and replaced it with the Naturalization Act of 1795. The wording of the 1795 Act was essentially the same as the 1790 Act, except that the term "natural born citizens" was deleted and replaced with "citizens".

Thereafter, Congress has passed laws that convey American citizenship to certain people at birth, but Congress never again passed any law that explicitly clarified, defined or extended the meaning of natural born citizenship. Senate Bill S.2128 was supposed to define "natural born citizen", but it was never enacted. The bill was referred to the Judiciary Committee in 2004, where it has remained ever since. In 2008, the Senate passed Resolution 511 regarding Presidential candidate John McCain's natural born citizenship, but the resolution was nonbinding and had no legal effect.

4.2 A similar term, "natural-born Subject", appeared in British Common Law

In 1736, Matthew Bacon defined "natural-born Subject" as:

All those are natural-born Subjects whose Parents, at the Time of their Birth, were under the actual Obedience of our King, and whose Place of Birth was within his dominions. (Page 77 in this 724-page (48MB) PDF file: Matthew Bacon, A New Abridgement of the Law, Vol 1, 1736).

The "parental obedience" requirement does not appear in later definitions of "natural-born Subject".

In 1765, William Blackstone defined "natural-born Subject" as anyone born in British territory, regardless of the parents' allegiance or citizenship. A child born in England, for example, was a natural-born subject, even if the child's parents were aliens:

The children of aliens, born here in England, are, generally speaking, natural-born subjects, and entitled to all the privileges of such. (Blackstone, Commentaries, 1765).

Sir Alexander Cockburn, Lord Chief Justice of England, leaves little doubt that, under British Common Law, a "natural-born Subject" was someone born in British territory, regardless of parental nationality:

By the common law of England, every person born within the dominions of the Crown, no matter whether of English or of foreign parents, and, in the latter case, whether the parents were settled or merely temporarily sojourning, in the country, was an English subject, save only the children of foreign ambassadors (who were excepted because their fathers carried their own nationality with them), or a child born to a foreigner during the hostile occupation of any part of the territories of England. No effect appears to have been given to descent as a source of nationality. (Alexander Cockburn, Nationality, 1869, page 7).

When the Constitution was written, British natural-born Subject status was determined by birthplace alone. If you were born in British territory, you were automatically a British natural-born Subject. The nationality or citizenship of your parents didn't matter.

But did the same principle also apply to natural born citizen? If natural born Subject status was determined by birthplace alone, was natural born citizen status also determined by birthplace alone, without regard to parental citizenship?

4.3 "Natural born citizen" appeared in English-language Literature

In 1774, Patsall translated Institutio Oratoria from Latin to English. Patsall's work might be the earliest English-language writing in which the term natural born citizen appears (What is a Natural Born Citizen of the United States?).

Institutio Oratoria is a twelve-volume classic written by Marcus Fabius Quintilianus during the first century AD. It contains this Latin sentence:

Quare, si fieri, potest et verba omnia et vox huius alumnum urbis oleant, ut oratio Romana plane videatur, non civitate donata. (Quintilianus, Institutio Oratoria, Book 1, Chapter VIII)

Patsall translated this sentence as:

Therefore, if possible, every word and the very tone of voice, should bespeak the natural born citizen of Rome, that the language may be purely Roman, and not so by a right different from birth and education.

Other English translations of Institutio Oratoria, such as Guthrie's translation in 1756, use "native" instead of "natural born citizen".

In Patsall's work, natural born citizen is an English rendering of alumnum urbis.

* Alumnum means "nourished, brought up; reared/fostered by; native, brought up locally" (Latin-English Dictionary 1.97FC). It refers to a "child not born of the family, but brought up and educated as one's own child" (Meaning of Alumni).

* Urbis means "city".

Thus alumnum urbis -- the "natives" or "natural born citizens" of a city -- are those who were not merely born in the city, but were raised or parented by the city -- specifically, by residents or citizens of the city.

In 1797, an English translation of Emmerich de Vattel's Law of Nations gave this definition of "natural born citizen":

The natives, or natural born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens. (Vattel, Law of Nations, Book 1, Chapter 19)

In both Patsall and Vattel, "natural born citizen" meant much more than someone who was born in a particular place. Parentage, upbringing and education also contributed to the meaning of "natural born citizen".

4.4 "Natural born citizen" appeared in Supreme Court decisions

In 1874, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed Vattel's definition of "natural born citizen":

At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners.

Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first.

For the purposes of this case, it is not necessary to solve these doubts. It is sufficient, for everything we have now to consider, that all children, born of citizen parents within the jurisdiction, are themselves citizens (Minor v. Happersett, 1874)

The Supreme Court said, in effect:

* There is no doubt that, if you were born in the United States and both of your parents were U.S. citizens at the time of your birth, you are a natural born citizen.

* Throughout American history, various "authorities" (judges, district attorneys, legal experts, etc.) have expressed support for the "citizenship-by-birthplace-alone" theory. According to this theory, U.S.-born children of non-citizen parents are citizens at birth and presumably natural born citizens as well.

* The "citizenship-by-birthplace-alone" theory is unproven and remains subject to doubt.

In 1898, in the Wong Kim Ark case, the Supreme Court reexamined the "citizenship-by-birthplace-alone" theory, but did not decide whether it applied to natural born citizenship. The Court ruled that Mr. Ark was a citizen, but did not rule that he was a natural born citizen (SCOTUS in 'Wong Kim Ark').

To summarize, we know for sure that persons born in the U.S., of parents who are U.S. citizens, are definitely, without doubt, natural born citizens. So far, the Supreme Court has not decided whether natural born citizenship also includes U.S.-born children of non-citizen parents.
5. In a nutshell, what is the Obama eligibility controversy?

The following information comes directly from Barack Obama's website:

When Barack Obama Jr. was born on Aug. 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Kenya was a British colony, still part of the United Kingdom's dwindling empire. As a Kenyan native, Barack Obama Sr. was a British subject whose citizenship status was governed by The British Nationality Act of 1948. That same act governed the status of Obama Sr.'s children. Since Sen. Obama has neither renounced his U.S. citizenship nor sworn an oath of allegiance to Kenya, his Kenyan citizenship automatically expired on Aug. 4, 1982. (FactCheck.org, as quoted in Obama's "Fight the Smears" webpage regarding his birth certificate, emphasis added).

The main controversy boils down to this one question:

If Barack Obama Jr. was born in the United States but, at the time of his birth, his father was a citizen of a foreign country and not a U.S. citizen, does Barack Obama Jr. meet the Constitutional "natural born citizen" requirement for presidency?

Obama apologists say "Yes". They believe there are only two kinds of American citizens: naturalized and natural born. A naturalized citizen is someone who becomes a citizen after his or her birth, through a legal process called "naturalization". A natural born citizen is anyone who is a U.S. citizen at birth. Since President Obama was born in the United States and was consequently a U.S. citizen at the time of his birth, he is a natural born citizen, regardless of his parents' citizenship.

Birthers say "No". They believe that, when the Constitution was written, a "natural born citizen" was someone who was born in the United States and whose parents were both U.S. citizens at the time of his or her birth. You cannot be a Constitutional natural born citizen unless both of your parents were U.S. citizens when you were born. If you are not a Constitutional natural born citizen, you are not eligible to serve as President.

Thus we have two opposing viewpoints regarding the meaning of "natural born citizen". Which one is correct? So far, the Supreme Court has not answered this question because, until now, there was no reason to. Now, the Supreme Court needs to do its job and answer the question.
6. Does the birthers' viewpoint have any historical or legal merit?

Birthers believe that, in order to be a natural born citizen, you must be born in the United States and both of your parents, at the time of your birth, must be U.S. citizens. The birthers support their viewpoint with the following information:

* Every U.S. President who was born after 1787 -- except President Barack Obama and President Chester Arthur -- was born in the United States, to parents who were both U.S. citizens. The general public did not learn until recently that, when Chester Arthur was born, his father was not a U.S. citizen. The 2008 election is the first time in American history that America knowingly elected a post-1787-born President whose parents were not both U.S. citizens.

* When Chester Arthur ran for Vice President and later President, he told outright lies and burned historical records, to conceal the fact that, although he was born in the United States, his father was a British Subject and not a U.S. citizen at the time of his (President Arthur's) birth. If "natural born citizen" means anyone born in the United States, regardless of parental citizenship, why did Chester Arthur go through so much trouble to convince the public that his parents were U.S. citizens when he was born? It is inconceivable that Chester Arthur would have taken such extraordinary measures, unless he believed that his birth to non-citizen parents made him ineligible to serve as VP or President (Historical Breakthrough -- Chester Arthur)

* On March 9, 1866, Representative John Bingham of Ohio, considered the father of the 14th Amendment, said the following in a speech before House of Representatives:

[I] find no fault with the introductory clause [S 61 Bill], which is simply declaratory of what is written in the Constitution, that every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen. (John Bingham, 1866, as quoted in Defining Natural Born Citizen)

* The Supreme Court has, on occasion, used the word "citizen" in reference to certain individuals who were either not born in the United States or not born of U.S.-citizen parents. Such individuals were citizens by law or by naturalization, but the Supreme Court has never referred to them as "natural born citizens". In those few cases in which the Supreme Court has declared an individual to be a "natural born citizen", the individual was always U.S.-born to U.S.-citizen parents. For example, in Perkins v. Elg (1939), Miss Elg was declared to be a natural born citizen. She was born in the United States and, when she was born, both of her parents were naturalized U.S. citizens.

* In 1797 (a decade after the Constitution was adopted), the English translation of Emmerich de Vattel's, Law of Nations was revised to include the term "natural born citizen". The revised English translation helps to clarify the meaning of "natural born citizen", as English-speaking people generally understood it towards the end of the 18th Century:

The natives, or natural born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens. ... I say, that, in order to be of the country, it is necessary that a person be born of a father who is a citizen; for, if he is born there of a foreigner, it will be only the place of his birth, and not his country. (Vattel, Law of Nations, Book 1, Chapter 19)

* In 1874, in the Minor v. Happersett case, the Supreme Court affirmed the definition of natural born citizen which had appeared in the 1797 English translation of Vattel's Law of Nations:

...it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first. (Minor v. Happersett, 1874)

* In Minor v. Happersett, the Supreme Court expressed "doubts" regarding the citizenship of U.S.-born children whose parents were not U.S. citizens. In Wong Kim Ark, 1898, the Supreme Court examined these "doubts", but did not render any decision or ruling pertaining to natural born citizenship. The Court ruled that Mr. Ark was a citizen; it did not rule that he was a natural born citizen. To date, the Supreme Court has never answered the question as to whether natural born citizenship extends to children of non-citizen parents.

These sources do not prove the birthers' case. But they show that birthers have a rational basis for requesting a public inquiry into Barack Obama's presidential eligibility.
7. What was the original purpose of the presidential "natural born citizen" requirement?

The presidential natural born citizenship requirement originated with John Jay, who recommended it in a letter to George Washington. The letter said:

Permit me to hint whether it would not be wise and seasonable to provide a strong check to the admission of foreigners into the administration of our national government ; and to declare expressly that the command in chief of the American army shall not be given to, nor devolve on any but a natural born citizen. (John Jay letter to George Washington, 25 July 1787)

John Jay believed, and the Founding Fathers agreed, that anyone who is subject to foreign influence should be barred from the presidency. St. George Tucker (1752-1827) explained why:

That provision in the constitution which requires that the president shall be a native-born citizen (unless he were a citizen of the United States when the constitution was adopted) is a happy means of security against foreign influence, which, wherever it is capable of being exerted, is to be dreaded more than the plague. The admission of foreigners into our councils, consequently, cannot be too much guarded against... To have added a [foreign] member to this sacred family in America, would have invited and perpetuated among us all the evils of Pandora's Box. (St. George Tucker, as quoted in Defining Natural-Born Citizen)

The Founding Fathers undoubtedly understood that natural born citizenship is acquired only at birth. Thus the presidential natural born citizenship provision was limited in scope. It could not protect the presidency from all possible forms of foreign intrusion. It could not exclude, from the presidency, people who had developed foreign sympathies or allegiances after their birth. At most, it could only bar, from the presidency, persons who were subject to foreign influence at birth -- specifically, persons who were foreign citizens at birth or were, at birth, subject to the laws of a foreign country.

When the Constitution was written, there were only two ways that a child could acquire foreign citizenship at birth or fall under foreign legal jurisdiction at birth:

* by being born in a foreign country; or
* by being born of parents who were citizens of a foreign country.

At the time, the United States did not recognize dual citizenship. No one could become a U.S. citizen without completely renouncing all foreign allegiance.

Therefore, in 1787, if you were born in the United States and your parents were U.S. citizens at the time of your birth, you were, without doubt, completely free of foreign influence at birth -- you were, without doubt, not a foreign citizen at birth and not subject to foreign legal jurisdiction at birth. On the other hand, if you were born outside of the United States or your parents were not U.S. citizens when you were born, you might have been, at birth, subject to foreign legal jurisdiction to some extent.

Thus the Founding Fathers undoubtedly understood that, in order for the presidential natural born citizen provision to be effective, the term "natural born citizen" had to mean "U.S.-born of U.S.-citizen parents". Otherwise, the provision would not work in all cases. It would occasionally allow, into the Office of President, individuals who were foreign citizens at birth or subject to foreign legal jurisdiction at birth -- the very kind of situation that the Founding Fathers had undoubtedly hoped to prevent, given their abhorrence of foreign influence in general.
8. What is the difference between a "Constitutional" and a "statutory" natural born citizen?

"Constitutional natural born citizen" refers to the term "natural born citizen" when it appears in the Constitution or in a Constitution-related document such as a Supreme Court decision. It refers to the meaning of "natural born citizen" in the Constitution, whatever the Supreme Court ultimately decides such meaning to be.

"Statutory natural born citizen" refers to someone who is deemed a "natural born citizen" as a result of a Federal or State law.

Currently, there is no Federal law that explicitly defines "natural born citizen" or explicitly conveys "natural born citizenship" to anyone. However, existing laws are sometimes understood or interpreted as conveying natural born citizenship to certain individuals at birth. At this point, we do not pass judgment on these understandings and interpretations. We merely say that, if someone is deemed to be a "natural born citizen" pursuant to a law or statute, we refer to such person as a "statutory natural born citizen".

A statutory natural born citizen is not necessarily the same thing as a Constitutional natural born citizen. The U.S. State Department warns against confusing the two concepts:

...the fact that someone is a natural born citizen pursuant to a statute does not necessarily imply that he or she is such a citizen for Constitutional purposes (Top of page 9, in U.S. Department of State Foreign Affairs Manual -- 7 FAM 1130)

If we were to define "natural born citizen" to mean anyone who is a "citizen at birth", our definition of "natural born citizen" would be statutory because it would depend on the statute or law which defines "citizen at birth". Under existing law, all children born in the United States (except the children of foreign diplomats) are "citizens at birth". Therefore, under existing law, almost all children born in the U.S. -- including children of illegal immigrants -- could be regarded as statutory natural born citizens.

However, H.R.1940, also known as the Birthright Citizenship Act of 2007, would change the existing law so that it would no longer grant "citizenship at birth" to children of illegal immigrants. If Congress were to pass H.R.1940, it would alter the meaning of "citizen at birth", and therefore would alter our statutory definition of natural born citizen. If H.R.1940 were enacted, the U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants could no longer be regarded as statutory natural born citizens.

To summarize:

* "Statutory natural born citizen" is the meaning of "natural born citizen" when such meaning depends on a Federal or State law. As Federal and State laws change, the meaning of "statutory natural born citizen" changes accordingly.

* "Constitutional natural born citizen" is the meaning of "natural born citizen" as used in the Constitution.

If Barack Obama was born in Hawaii, he could be regarded as a statutory natural born citizen. But a statutory natural born citizen is not necessarily a Constitutional natural born citizen.
9. Wouldn't the most recent modern-day statutory meaning of "natural born citizen" take precedence over the original Constitutional meaning?

Not necessarily. The only proper and legitimate means of changing the Constitution is the Constitutional Amendment process. Congress cannot change the Constitution by simply passing a law. Nor can the Constitution be changed by someone's understanding or interpretation of an existing law.

Neither Congress nor society can change the meaning of the Constitution by redefining a word or term that the Constitution uses. As the U.S. State Department has warned (see question 8), we cannot assume that "natural born citizen" by modern-day statute or modern-day word usage is the same thing as "natural born citizen" in the Constitution.
10. If Obama is not a "Constitutional natural born citizen", so what? Why should anyone care?

Understandably, some Americans question the wisdom of "enforcing the law" and "upholding the Constitution" when the specific requirement being upheld or enforced seems to be an antiquated technicality. As long as Barack Obama is doing his job as President, why should his parents' citizenship matter? Obama was elected President, not his parents. His parents passed away many years ago, so how is their citizenship relevant? Is enforcing a parental citizenship requirement really worth the horrific political chaos and unimaginable governmental disruption that might result if Obama were found to be ineligible?

Birthers respond in this way... If the Constitution contains something that is no longer appropriate for modern-day society, the proper remedy is a Constitutional Amendment. If we want to be a nation that is ruled by law and the Constitution, we cannot just ignore a Constitutional requirement, merely because it is inconvenient or we think it doesn't matter. If any one part of the Constitution doesn't matter, why would any other part of the Constitution matter?

Many of our rights -- free speech, freedom of religion, privacy, trial by jury, and so on -- come from the Constitution. If we say it's OK to ignore the Constitution regarding Obama's eligibility, we open the door for someone else to say it's OK to ignore the Constitution regarding issues which may directly affect our rights as citizens.
11. Why has every birther lawsuit been dismissed?

So far, every lawsuit challenging Obama's presidential eligibility has been dismissed on a technicality -- lack of standing, lack of jurisdiction, mootness, etc. So far, neither the Supreme Court nor any other court has considered, in an open hearing, the actual substance or merit of any of these cases. As of this writing, no court has ruled on whether or not Barack Obama is a Constitutional natural born citizen.
12. What is a 14th Amendment natural born citizen?

Some Obama apologists argue that the 14th Amendment, adopted in 1868, had implicitly redefined "natural born citizen". They say that, under the new definition, Barack Obama qualifies as a natural born citizen.

The 14th Amendment citizenship clause states:

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 wherein they reside.

The 14th Amendment was enacted at a time when citizenship was, to some extent, managed and controlled by individual states. Each state had its own citizenship laws. Anyone who became a citizen of a state immediately and automatically became a citizen of the United States.

The 14th Amendment defined a certain class of people, which we call the "14th Amendment Citizen" (14AC) class. This 14AC class consists of every person who is both (a) born or naturalized in the United States, and (b) subject to U.S. jurisdiction at the time of his or her birth or naturalization.

The 14th Amendment required every state to accept, as a citizen, anyone belonging to the 14AC class. Each state could grant or deny citizenship to non-14AC people. But the 14th Amendment prohibited any state from denying citizenship to 14AC-class members.

Even though the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment only mentions citizens and never mentions natural born citizens, Obama apologists argue that the 14th Amendment implicitly redefined "natural born citizen" to mean anyone who meets two requirements:

* born in the United States, and
* subject to U.S. jurisdiction at the time of his or her birth.

The argument goes as follows: Barack Obama was born in Hawaii, which was, in 1961, a part of the United States. Therefore he met the first requirement. His mother was a U.S. citizen; and his father, though not a U.S. citizen, was nevertheless in the United States legally. Since both of his parents were subject to U.S. law, Barack Obama himself was under U.S. jurisdiction at the time of his birth. Consequently the President meets both requirements of natural born citizenship, as redefined by the 14th Amendment.

This "14th Amendment natural born citizen" argument depends heavily on the meaning of "jurisdiction", which is discussed next.
13. In the 14th Amendment, what does "jurisdiction" mean?

During the debates over the 14th Amendment's citizenship clause, both of its primary framers, Sen. Jacob Howard and Sen. Lyman Trumbull, made it clear that the word "jurisdiction", as used in the 14th Amendment, means sole, complete, absolute, exclusive U.S. jurisdiction and the absence of any other jurisdiction or allegiance.

Sen. Lyman Trumbull: The provision is, that "all persons born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens." That means "subject to the complete jurisdiction thereof." What do we mean by "complete jurisdiction thereof?" Not owing allegiance to anybody else. That is what it means.

Sen. Jacob Howard: [I] concur entirely with the honorable Senator from Illinois [Trumbull], in holding that the word "jurisdiction," as here employed, ought to be construed so as to imply a full and complete jurisdiction on the part of the United States, coextensive in all respects with the constitutional power of the United States, whether exercised by Congress, by the executive, or by the judicial department; that is to say, the same jurisdiction in extent and quality as applies to every citizen of the United States now. (What 'Subject to the Jurisdiction Thereof' Really Means)

In 1884, the Supreme Court said:

The persons declared to be citizens are "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof." The evident meaning of these last words is not merely subject in some respect or degree to the jurisdiction of the United States, but completely subject to their political jurisdiction and owing them direct and immediate allegiance. And the words relate to the time of birth in the one case, as they do to the time of naturalization in the other. Persons not thus subject to the jurisdiction of the United States at the time of birth cannot become so afterwards except by being naturalized... (Page 112 U. S. 101-102, Elk v. Wilkins, 1884)

Sole U.S. jurisdiction was a core requirement for 14th Amendment citizenship. The 14th Amendment granted citizenship to emancipated slaves and their descendants, because they were, and have always been, under sole U.S. jurisdiction. Native Americans were subject to tribal jurisdiction and thus were not under sole U.S. jurisdiction. That's why the 14th Amendment did not grant citizenship to American Indians, even though virtually all American Indians were born in the United States.

For sake of argument, if the 14th Amendment had redefined "natural born citizen" to mean anyone "born in the U.S. and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" (where "jurisdiction" is understood to mean sole U.S. jurisdiction), Obama would still fail to meet the natural born citizen requirement. Here's why...

On his web site, Obama claims that his father was a British subject and that, in 1961, the citizenship status of children of British subjects was "governed" (that's Obama's word) by the British Nationality Act of 1948. Thus Obama's citizenship status, at birth, was "governed" by British law, in addition to U.S. law.

If Obama's citizenship status at birth was "governed" by the laws of a foreign country, how could he, at birth, be subject to sole U.S. jurisdiction, which is an essential requirement for 14th Amendment citizenship?
14. Doesn't the Wong Kim Ark decision make Obama a "natural born citizen"?

Wong Kim Ark was born in the United States sometime between 1868 and 1873. When he was born, his parents were Chinese immigrants and were permanent legal residents of the United States; but they were not U.S. citizens. In the Wong Kim Ark (1898) case, the Supreme Court ruled that Mr. Ark was a U.S. citizen, even though his parents were not.

The evident intention, and the necessary effect, of the submission of this case to the decision of the court upon the facts agreed by the parties, were to present for determination the single question, stated at the beginning of this opinion, namely, whether a child born in the United States, of parents of Chinese descent, who, at the time of his birth, are subjects of the emperor of China, but have a permanent domicile and residence in the United States, and are there carrying on business, and are not employed in any diplomatic or official capacity under the emperor of China, becomes at the time of his birth a citizen of the United States. For the reasons above stated, this court is of opinion that the question must be answered in the affirmative. (Page 169 U.S. 705, Wong Kim Ark, 1898)

The Wong Kim Ark case does not directly apply to Barack Obama's presidential eligibility, for two reasons:

* The Supreme Court did not rule that Mr. Ark was a natural born citizen. It merely ruled that he was a citizen. Even if Barack Obama's circumstances at birth were identical to those of Mr. Ark, the Wong Kim Ark decision would, at most, only convey citizenship to the President. It would not convey natural born citizenship, which is what the President needs in order to be eligible to hold office (SCOTUS in 'Wong Kim Ark').

* Mr. Ark was granted citizenship because, at the time of Mr. Ark's birth, his parents had "permanent domicile and residence" in the United States and was "carrying on business" in the United States. President Obama's father did not meet these conditions. He was not a permanent resident and he was not doing business in the U.S. He was merely visiting the U.S. temporarily, presumably on a student visa, for the purpose of getting an American education.

Obama apologists argue that the reasoning of the Wong Kim Ark decision, when carried to its logical conclusion, supports the viewpoint that natural born citizenship is determined by birthplace alone:

It thus clearly appears that by the law of England for the last three centuries, beginning before the settlement of this country, and continuing to the present day, aliens, while residing in the dominions possessed by the crown of England, were within the allegiance, the obedience, the faith or loyalty, the protection, the power, and the jurisdiction of the English sovereign; and therefore every child born in England of alien parents was a natural-born subject, unless the child of an ambassador or other diplomatic agent of a foreign state, or of an alien enemy in hostile occupation of the place where the child was born. The same rule was in force in all the English colonies upon this continent down to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the constitution as originally established. (Page 169 U. S. 658, Wong Kim Ark, 1898)

The Wong Kim Ark reasoning was based largely on the assumption that the "rule" of British Common Law "continued to prevail" under the Constitution. In its dissenting opinion, the minority in the Wong Kim Ark case argued that the majority's assumption was factually incorrect. On this one point, the minority and majority disagreed, not over a matter of law, but over a matter of historical fact:

And it is this rule, pure and simple, which it is asserted determined citizenship of the United States during the entire period prior to the passage of the act of April 9, 1866, and the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, and governed the meaning of the words "citizen of the United States" and "natural-born citizen" used in the Constitution as originally framed and adopted. I submit that no such rule obtained during the period referred to, and that those words bore no such construction... (Page 169 U. S. 707, Wong Kim Ark, 1898)

According to the Federalist Blog, the minority in the Wong Kim Ark case was correct. As matter of American history, some States retained certain aspects of British Common Law for their own purposes, but overall, British Common Law did not "continue to prevail" at the Federal level (Why U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark Can Never Be Considered Settled Birthright Law; see also discussion of Wong Kim Ark in Amicus Curiae Brief in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld).

George Mason, called the "Father of the Bill of Rights" and considered one of the "Founding Fathers" of the United States, is widely quoted as saying:

The common law of England is not the common law of these states. ( Debate in Virginia Ratifying Convention, 19 June 1788)

In a recent speech to the Federalist Society, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia confirmed that British Common Law had little, if any, "control" in the USA after the USA gained its independence from Great Britain:

The common law is gone. The federal courts never applied the common law and even in the state courts it's codified now. (Audio/Video: Justice Scalia speech, Nov 22, 2008)

Wong Kim Ark's circumstances, though different from Barack Obama's, were virtually identical to those of President Chester Arthur. Mr. Ark and President Arthur were born in the United States. When each was born, his parents were permanent legal residents of the United States, but were not U.S. citizens; the parents were, in both cases, citizens of a foreign country. Under the laws in effect at the time (prior to the Wong Kim Ark decision), neither Wong Kim Ark nor Chester Arthur was a U.S. citizen at birth.

The Wong Kim Ark decision was written by Justice Horace Gray. Justice Gray was appointed to the Supreme Court by President Chester Arthur. At the time, the general public did not know that, when Chester Arthur was born, his father was a British subject and not a U.S. citizen; therefore Arthur was not a U.S. citizen at birth under then-existing laws.

In Wrotnowski v. Bysiewicz, the plaintiff (Cort Wrotnowski) argued that the Wong Kim Ark decision was not based on an impartial objective reading of history and the law, but was designed to grant U.S. citizenship retroactively to Chester Arthur, so as to legitimize Chester Arthur's presidency and thereby legitimize Horace Gray's own appointment to the Supreme Court (Wrotnowski supplemental brief regarding Chester Arthur).
15. Doesn't the Julia Lynch case show that Barack Obama is a "natural born citizen"?

Julia Lynch was born in New York in 1819. At the time of her birth, her parents were not U.S. citizens -- they were Irish citizens visiting the United States. Shortly after Julia's birth, the Lynch family returned to Ireland, where Julia remained until adulthood.

In the Lynch v Clarke (1844) case, the First Circuit Court (not the U.S. Supreme Court) ruled that Julia was a U.S. citizen at birth. In the opinion of Vice-Chancellor Lewis Halsey Sandford, the judge who presided over this case, there is "no doubt" that Julia Lynch was also a natural born citizen:

After an exhaustive examination of the law, the Vice-Chancellor said that he entertained no doubt that every person born in within the dominions and allegiances of the United States, whatever the situation of his parents, was a natural-born citizen; and added, that this was the general understanding of the legal profession, and the universal impression of the public mind. (pp 581-582, in Cases on Constitutional Law - Part 2)

An article in the New York Legal Observer elaborated:

The only standard which then existed, of a natural born citizen, was the rule of the common law, and no different standard has been adopted since. Suppose a person should be elected President who was native born, but of alien parents, could there be any reasonable doubt that he was eligible under the constitution? I think not. The position would be decisive in his favor that by the rule of the common law, in force when the constitution was adopted, he is a citizen." (Dicta from Lynch v. Clarke (1844), cited by Article in New York Legal Observer).

Later in American history, the Opinion of Lincoln's Attorney General Edward Bates (1862) and the dissenting opinion in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1856), echoed the same viewpoint -- that you are a U.S. citizen (and presumably a U.S. natural born citizen as well) if you were born in the United States, regardless of your parents' citizenship.

Birther Response: Birthers do not deny that, throughout American history, various "authorities" (judges, attorney generals, legal experts, etc.) have expressed the opinion that birth within the United States is, by itself, sufficient to convey U.S. citizenship and perhaps natural born citizenship as well.

However, throughout history, other authorities have expressed the opinion that citizenship at birth properly belongs only to children whose parents are U.S. citizens. For example:

* When we apply the term "citizens" to the inhabitants of States, it means those who are members of the political community. The civil law determined the condition of the son by that of the father. A man whose father was not a citizen was allowed to be a perpetual inhabitant, but not a citizen, unless citizenship was conferred on him. (Rep. A. Smyth (VA), House of Representatives, December 1820, as quoted in Defining Natural-Born Citizen)

* As a man is a "citizen" of the country to which his father owes allegiance, it was incumbent on one alleging in an election contest that a voter was not a citizen of the United States to show that such voter's father was not a citizen thereof during his son's minority. (Savage v. Umphries (TX) 118 S. W. 893, 909, as quoted in Defining Natural-Born Citizen)

Thus we have an ongoing debate between (a) "authorities" who believe that natural born citizenship is determined by birthplace alone, and (b) "authorities" who believe that parental citizenship is a requirement for natural born citizenship. So far, the Supreme Court has not decided the issue, one way or the other. However, in 1874, the Supreme Court said there were "doubts" regarding the citizenship status of U.S.-born children of non-citizen parents:

...it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first. For the purposes of this case it is not necessary to solve these doubts." (Minor v. Happersett, 1874)

The Supreme Court has yet to resolve these doubts.

British Common Law: Prior to the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the thirteen colonies were under British rule and were governed by British Common Law. Under British Common Law, if you were born on British territory, you were automatically, at birth, a British natural-born Subject, even if your parents were aliens. This principle -- that one's citizenship is derived from one's place of birth -- is called jus soli ("the right of soil"):

The children of aliens, born here in England, are, generally speaking, natural-born subjects, and entitled to all the privileges of such. In which the constitution of France differs from ours; for there, by their jus albinatus, if a child be born of foreign parents, it is an alien. (Blackstone, Commentaries, 1765).

When the thirteen colonies gained their independence and became States, they were no longer bound by the jus soli principle of British Common Law. Each State was free to enact its own birthright citizenship laws. When a state enacted its own laws, such laws replaced the citizenship provisions of British Common Law in that particular state.

For example, Virginia enacted this law, written by Thomas Jefferson in 1779:

Be it enacted by the General Assembly, that

* all white persons born within the territory of this commonwealth and all who have resided therein two years next before the passing of this act, and all who shall hereafter migrate into the same; and shall before any court of record give satisfactory proof by their own oath or affirmation, that they intend to reside therein, and moreover shall give assurance of fidelity to the commonwealth; and

* all infants wheresoever born, whose father, if living, or otherwise, whose mother was, a citizen at the time of their birth, or who migrate hither, their father, if living, or otherwise their mother becoming a citizen, or who migrate hither without father or mother,

shall be deemed citizens of this commonwealth, until they relinquish that character in manner as herein after expressed: And all others not being citizens of any the United States of America, shall be deemed aliens. (Thomas Jefferson, 1779, A Bill Declaring Who Shall Be Deemed Citizens of This Commonwealth, formatting and line spacing added for readability and clarity).

The Virginia law made citizenship available to all white people who were born in Virginia. If you were born in Virginia and you were not already a citizen, you could, in adulthood, become a citizen by taking an oath. But the Virginia law did not grant immediate and automatic citizenship, at birth, to every white baby born in Virginia. Under Virginia law, automatic citizenship at birth was controlled by the principle of jus sanguinis ("the right of blood"), whereby the citizenship of a child, at the moment of its birth, is the citizenship of its parents. (What 'Subject to the Jurisdiction Thereof' Really Means)

New York State law: New York State made a choice to retain the jus soli principle of British Common Law. Anyone born in New York was, at birth, automatically a citizen of New York, regardless of parental citizenship.

The Lynch v. Clarke (1844) case, and other cases such as Munro vs. Merchant (1858), were decided in accordance with British Common Law, not because British Common Law was the national law of the United States, but because it was the applicable State law in New York State. Under New York State law, Julia Lynch was a citizen at birth and therefore she was deemed to be a statutory natural born citizen.

Her natural born citizenship was "statutory" because it depended on the State law that was in effect in the State in which she was born. Had she been born in Virginia instead of New York State, she would not have been a U.S. citizen at birth, and she would not have been a statutory natural born citizen.

The fact that Julia Lynch was deemed to be a statutory natural born citizen in New York State does not necessarily mean that she was a Constitutional natural born citizen (see Question 8), especially since the Supreme Court has, so far, not decided whether Constitutional natural born citizenship extends to children of non-citizen parents.
16. Could "natural born citizen" be based on the British Common Law principle of jus soli?

Not likely, for two reasons:

First, if the British Common Law principle of jus soli (citizenship by birthplace alone) had been adopted at the national level, what would have been the point of granting each state the right to enact its own birthright citizenship laws?

After the Constitution was adopted, every State had the right to enact laws that deny citizenship at birth to some children born in that State, such as children of African or Native-American descent, and children whose parents were not U.S. citizens. How could the States have acquired or exercised such a right if the nation, as a whole, had embraced the doctrine that "everyone born in the U.S. is a U.S. citizen"? (Defining Natural Born Citizen).

Second, all States were unanimous in granting citizenship at birth to children who met both the jus soli criterion (they were born in the United States) and the jus sanguinis criterion (their parents were U.S. citizens). Some states routinely denied citizenship at birth to children who met only one of these criteria but not both.

A more inclusive definition of "natural born citizen" -- which required either jus soli or jus sanguinis but not necessarily both -- is unlikely because it would have included people whom some states were denying citizenship to. It is improbable that the Founding Fathers would have permitted states to deny citizenship to natural born citizens. More likely, "natural born citizen" referred to a class of people that all states were already recognizing as undeniable U.S. citizens.

U.S. citizenship is undeniable only in individuals who, at birth, meet both the jus soli and the jus sanguinis criteria. Consequently, the only plausible definition of an undeniable U.S. citizen is the birthers' definition of "natural born citizen" -- a U.S.-born individual whose parents are both U.S. citizens.
17. What's the "beef" with President Obama's birth certificate?

President Obama has published, on the internet, a digital photograph of a computer-generated short-form Certification of Life Birth. The President has not published a copy of his original 1961 typewritten long-form birth certificate containing the names and signatures of people who actually witnessed his birth.

In Hawaii, the contents of an original long-form birth certificate are private and confidential information, protected by State law. The Aloha State will not release a copy of an original birth certificate without permission. So far, President Obama has not given his permission for the release of his original long-form birth certificate.

If you were born in Hawaii and you ask for a copy of your Hawaiian birth certificate for a routine everyday purpose such as applying for a drivers license or passport, the State of Hawaii will not send you a copy of your original long-form birth certificate.

Instead, the State will send you a computer generated short-form Certification of Live Birth, which shows only minimal information -- your name, date of birth, place of birth, name and race of each of your parents, and so forth. A Certification of Live Birth can be used, instead of an original long-form birth certificate, for most everyday purposes.

A Certification of Live Birth shows an individual's birth information but does not show the source of that information. In Hawaii, the identity of the source of one's birth information -- whether it be a hospital, a doctor, or a parent's or relative's affidavit -- is deemed to be private and confidential. Thus the name of a source is found only on an original long-form birth certificate, and is not found on a Certification of Live Birth.

Barack Obama's Certification of Live Birth confirms two facts:

* The State of Hawaii has, in its files, the President's original 1961 typewritten long-form birth certificate; and

* The President's original 1961 birth certificate says he was born in Hawaii.

Birthers do not dispute either of these two facts. Birthers merely want to know the extent, if any, to which the information on Barack Obama's original 1961 long-form birth certificate came from or was verified by someone other than an immediate family member.
18. Didn't the State of Hawaii recently verify that President Obama was born in Hawaii?
On October 31, 2008, Dr. Chiyome Fukino, Director of Health for the State of Hawaii, released this public statememnt regarding (then Senator) Barack Obama's birth certificate:

There have been numerous requests for Sen. Barack Hussein Obama's official birth certificate. State law (Hawai'i Revised Statutes 338-18) prohibits the release of a certified birth certificate to persons who do not have a tangible interest in the vital record.

Therefore, I as Director of Health for the State of Hawai'i, along with the Registrar of Vital Statistics who has statutory authority to oversee and maintain these type of vital records, have personally seen and verified that the Hawai'i State Department of Health has Sen. Obama's original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures.

No state official, including Governor Linda Lingle, has ever instructed that this vital record be handled in a manner different from any other vital record in the possession of the State of Hawai'i. (Statement by Dr. Chiyome Fukino).

Dr. Fukino confirmed that Barack Obama's original 1961 long-form Hawaiian birth certificate exists, and the Hawaii State Department of Health has possession of it. But she did not confirm or verify any information contained in the birth certificate itself.

Under Hawaii State law, the contents of a birth certificate are private and confidential. Consequently, Dr. Fukino could not legally disclose or confirm any information contained in Barack Obama's birth certificate.

Nonetheless, there is little doubt that President Obama's original Hawaiian birth certificate says he was born in Hawaii. Under the laws that were in effect in Hawaii when Barack Obama was born, the State of Hawaii would not have knowingly issued a Hawaiian birth certificate to anyone born outside of Hawaii.

Act 96 of Laws of the Territory of Hawaii was adopted in 1911. Under this Act, Hawaiian birth certificates were issued only to individuals who were believed to be born in Hawaii:

The Secretary of Hawaii may, whenever satisfied that any person was born within the Hawaiian Islands, cause to be issued to such person a certificate showing such fact. (pp 127-128, Laws of the Territory of Hawaii)

A subsequent law, enacted in 1955, reaffirmed the fact that Hawaiian birth certificates were given only to individuals who were believed to be Hawaii-born.

Under the 1955 law, the State of Hawaii could issue Hawaiian birth certificates in cases in which the birth was not independently confirmed by an attending physician or midwife. In such cases, a judicial or administrative body or official must determine the birth certificate's probative value:

In 1961, if a person was born in Hawaii but not attended by a physician or mid wife, then, up to the first birthday of the child, an adult could, upon testimony, file a "Delayed Certificate", which required endorsement on the Delayed Certificate of a summary statement of the evidence submitted in support of the acceptance for delayed filing, which evidence must be kept in a special permanent file. The statute provided that the probative value of the Delayed Certificate must be determined by the judicial or administrative body or official before whom the certificate is offered as evidence. (See Section 57-18, 19 & 20 of the Territorial Public Health Statistics Act in the 1955 Revised Laws of Hawaii which was in effect in 1961). (Hawaii Birth Records Law)

Hawaiian Statute 338-17.8, Certificates for children born out of State, allowed Hawaiian birth certificates to be issued to foreign-born children of Hawaii-resident parents. But Statute 338-17.8 was not enacted until 1982, well after Barack Obama was born.

In 1961, the State of Hawaii would not have issued a birth certificate to Barack Obama unless the State believed he was born in Hawaii. Barack Obama's original 1961 typewritten birth certificate undoubtedly says he was born in Hawaii.

But questions still remain. When Barack Obama was born, was his birth attended by a doctor or midwife? If not, who testified regarding his birth? His mother? His grandmother? Were any of these people interviewed? Was there a judicial or administrative hearing to determine the birth certificate's probative value? Who recorded the date and time of Barack Obama's birth? Could his actual date of birth have been a week or two earlier?

Barack Obama's birth in Hawaii cannot be regarded as "verified" until these questions are answered.
19. Doesn't the mere existence of Barack Obama's original Hawaiian birth certificate prove that he was born in Hawaii?

Barack Obama's original Hawaiian birth certificate, by its mere existence, shows that the State of Hawaii believed he was born in Hawaii. His birth certificate would prove that he was born in Hawaii only if his birth in Hawaii was witnessed and confirmed by someone other than an immediate family member. For example:

* If Barack Obama was born in a hospital in Hawaii, his birth certificate would indicate that a hospital had confirmed his birth in that hospital. Such confirmation would show, beyond reasonable doubt, that President Obama was born in Hawaii.

* If Barack Obama was born at home, his birth certificate would show the name of the professional (presumably, a doctor, midwife or paramedic) who assisted with the delivery. The professional's name and signature would confirm, and thus remove any reasonable doubt, that Obama's birth took place in Hawaii.

But consider this hypothetical scenario: Suppose Stanley Ann Obama (President Obama's mother) had been a resident of Hawaii since June 1960. Suppose that, in November or December 1960, upon learning of her pregnancy, she received prenatal care from a local doctor in Hawaii. Suppose that, on Monday August 7, 1961, she walked into her doctor's office, carrying a recently-born baby in her arms. Suppose she told her doctor that the birth took place, suddenly and unexpectedly, on Friday evening, August 4, 1961. Suppose she said that, when she gave birth, no one else was present, except Madelyn Dunham, the baby's maternal grandmother, who assisted with the delivery. Suppose the doctor examined this baby and found nothing that conclusively disproved Stanley Ann's story.

Given the mother's testimony, her history of prenatal care in Hawaii, her Hawaii residency, and the absence of contravening evidence from her doctor, the State of Hawaii would have probably issued a birth certificate for her baby, even though NO ONE outside of the baby's immediate family had actually witnessed the baby's birth in Hawaii.

The birth certificate would show no independent corroboration of the baby's birth in Hawaii. The Hawaii State Department of Health officials would have believed that the baby was born in Hawaii because the mother had said so and they had no compelling reason to believe otherwise. But the birthplace indicated on the birth certificate would be based solely on the mother's unsubstantiated testimony.

What if Stanley Ann and her recently-born baby had arrived, on an overseas flight, at Honolulu International Airport, on Sunday, August 6, 1961? In the absence of an original birth certificate, such theoretical possibilities, however implausible and far fetched, cannot be entirely ruled out.

Until President Obama releases an original birth certificate showing independent corroboration of his birth in Hawaii, no one can say for sure whether the President meets the first requirement of natural born citizenship -- birth within the United States.
20. Do birthers actually believe that President Obama was born in a foreign country?

Birthers are divided over this issue. Some believe President Obama was born overseas. Others believe that, when the President's birth certificate is released, it will show conclusively that he was born in Hawaii. Until the President's original 1961 typewritten long-form birth certificate is published, no one can say for sure, one way or the other, where he was born.

Among the various attorneys and plaintiffs who have filed lawsuits challenging the President's eligibility and/or seeking the release of his original long-form birth certificate, there is no consensus of opinion regarding the President's actual place of birth.

* Attorney Phil Berg believes the President was born in Kenya.

* Attorney Leo Donofrio and Attorney Mario Apuzzo believe Barack Obama was probably born in Hawaii, but it doesn't really matter. Regardless of where he was born, the President is ineligible because of his father's foreign citizenship.

* One-time adjunct law professor Andy Martin believes the President was almost certainly born in Hawaii. Neverlessless, Dr. Martin argues that the President's birth certificate is an historical document and, for that reason, joins with birthers in seeking its release.

Despite widely differing opinions on the birthplace question, birthers are unanimous in advocating (a) the release of the President's original 1961 long-form Hawaiian birth certificate, and (b) an open public judicial hearing regarding the President's Constitutional eligibility.
21. If President Obama's birth certificate shows conclusively that he was born in Hawaii, would it end the eligibility controversy?

Definitely not! President Obama has stated publicly that his father was not a U.S. citizen. According to the birthers' understanding of history and law, if his father was not a U.S. citizen, President Obama cannot be a Constitutional natural born citizen, regardless of where he might have been born. If President Obama was born in Hawaii, he could be regarded as a statutory natural born citizen, but he would not necessarily be a Constitutional natural born citizen.

Regardless of what his birth certificate says, Obama's presidential eligibility will never be settled or resolved, until the Supreme Court decides whether the U.S.-born children of non-U.S.-citizen parents are Constitutional natural born citizens.
22. Where do we go from here?

2008 was the first time in history that the United States knowingly elected a post-1787-born President whose parents were not both U.S. citizens at the time of his birth. In Minor v. Happersett, 1874, the Supreme Court stated that there is a legitimate unanswered question, or "doubt", as to whether a U.S.-born child of a non-citizen parent is a Constitutional natural born citizen. Until the Supreme Court answers this question, it is by no means "settled" that Barack Obama is Constitutionally eligible to be President of the United States.

The DC District Court has the authority to investigate the eligibility of a sitting President. The DC District Court received this authority from Congress when Congress passed the Federal Quo Warranto Statute in 1901 and revised it, in 1963, to its present form.

The Federal Quo Warranto Statute is thoroughly explained in this three-part series:

Quo Warranto -- Part 1

Quo Warranto -- Part 2

Quo Warranto -- Part 3

A Quo Warranto inquiry is not a prosecution. It does not accuse Barack Obama of breaking any law. The inquiry is a civil proceeding, not a criminal one. In a Quo Warranto inquiry, the DC District Court would say to Barack Obama something to this effect (loosely paraphrased):

Mr. President, you are being asked to show, beyond reasonable doubt, that you are eligible to hold the office that you are currently holding. Please be advised: 1) You bear the burden of proof. It is up to you to show that you are eligible to serve as President. 2) Constitutional questions will be heard and settled by the U.S. Supreme Court. 3) This Quo Warranto proceeding has teeth. It operates under Congressional authority. If you cannot or will not show the Court, beyond reasonable doubt, that you are eligible to be President, this Court has the power and the authority to remove you from office.

The DC District Court would determine (by jury, if necessary) the relevant facts of the case -- Obama's birthplace, his parents' citizenship, etc. The Supreme Court would then decide the Constitutional legal issues, such as what a Constitutional natural born citizen is and whether Barack Obama is such a citizen.

If you believe there is enough doubt about Obama's eligibility to warrant a public inquiry, please consider writing, in your own words, a letter to the proper authorities, politely and respectfully asking them to bring (or permit a third party to bring) the matter before the DC District Court. Attorney Leo Donofrio suggests writing to U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, since the U.S. Attorney in the District of Columbia Jeffrey Taylor has resigned.

By writing, you would show that (a) you care about the Constitution, (b) you believe there are reasonable doubts about the President's Constitutional eligibility, and (c) faithfulness to the Constitution requires a proper and timely investigation and resolution of these doubts.