Constitutional Law

Hawaii governor wants more Obama birth info released

By By The Associated Press

HONOLULU ? Democratic Gov. Neil Abercrombie wants to find a way to release more information about President Barack Obama's birth and dispel conspiracy theories that he was born elsewhere.

Abercrombie, who was a friend of Obama's parents and knew him as a child, says he is deeply troubled by the effort to cast doubt on the president's citizenship.

The newly elected governor will ask the state attorney general's office about what can be done to put an end to questions about Obama's birth documentation from Aug. 4, 1961, spokeswoman Donalyn Dela Cruz said yesterday.

"Is it going to be done immediately? No, the first thing on our list is the economy," Dela Cruz said.

It's unclear what Abercrombie could do because Hawaii's privacy laws have long barred the release of a certified birth certificate to anyone who doesn't have a tangible interest.

Hawaii's health director said last year and in 2008 that she had seen and verified Obama's original 1961 vital records, and birth notices in two Honolulu newspapers were published within days of Obama's birth at Kapiolani Maternity and Gynecological Hospital in Honolulu.

But so-called "birthers" have not been satisfied with such assurances or the "Certification of Live Birth" Obama released in 2008. The certification is a digital document that is a record of a person's birth in the state, including the parents' names, but the certificate does not list the name of the hospital where Obama's mother gave birth or the physician who delivered him, information collected by the state as part of its vital records.

"Birthers" claim Obama is ineligible to be president because they say there's no proof he was born in the United States. Many of the skeptics ask whether he was actually born in Kenya, his father's home country.

"What bothers me is that some people who should know better are trying to use this for political reasons," Abercrombie told the Los Angeles Times last week. "Maybe I'm the only one in the country that could look you right in the eye right now and tell you, 'I was here when that baby was born.'"

Abercrombie was unavailable for additional comment yesterday because he was vacationing on Maui, Dela Cruz said.

Abercrombie, 72, originally from New York, befriended Obama's parents at the University of Hawaii after he moved here in 1959, the same year the islands became a state. Abercrombie has said he remembers seeing Obama as a child with his parents at social events, although he acknowledged that he didn't see his parents with their newborn son at the hospital.

The number of requests for Obama's birth information increased this month as the Obama family prepared to vacation in Hawaii.

The Department of Health had received 27 requests for the president's birth information this month as of Dec. 23, up from 16 in November, said spokeswoman Janice Okubo.

Information requests rose despite a new state law allowing officials to ignore persistent and repetitive inquiries, a law that has been used about six times by the department, Okubo said.

"It's just a few people, and some of their requests are the same," she said. "The requests fluctuate from month to month."

Nearly all birth certificate information seekers are from the mainland United States, with requests rarely coming from Hawaii residents, said Cathy Takase, acting director for the state Office of Information Practices.

Takase usually responds to appeals for Obama's birth records by telling requesters that the information they're seeking is contained in records protected by statute.

Full post as published by First Amendment Center on December 28, 2010 (boomark / email).