"Yes, I have seen the handwritten, long-form original birth certificate. It exists," said Chiyome Fukino, who served as Hawaii’s health department director for eight years until last December. “It indicated that he was born in Hawaii -- he was a native-born citizen.”
The certificate was moved to its more secure location in recent months by Alvin Onaka, Hawaii’s State Registrar, in response to an increasing number of media requests by FoxNews.com and others, according to sources.
"It is my understanding that the book has been placed in a smaller locked container in the same secure safe,” said Fukino. "The safe is still in the department.”
Fukino and others claim the additional security measure reduces the number of people with access to the much-sought-after document from a handful to just one: Onaka himself.
Precisely what information is or is not contained in that birth certificate is a matter of some speculation. Fukino said she could not recall the details of what is listed there. Birth certificates issued in Hawaii in 1961, when Obama was born, included a range of information on the personal, demographic and other particulars about the newborn and parents. This has led some to believe there is information in the document that Obama does not want made public.
Officials in Hawaii say state law prohibits them from releasing the information contained in the full birth certificate filing – even if the president himself requested a copy. But a copy of birth certificates of twins born at the same hospital as Obama’s listed birthplace the day after his birth, reveals the type of information on the form.
Along with information on the newborns, the items on the twins’ birth certificate copies obtained by FoxNews.com contain separate lines for the mother’s and father’s residences and birthplaces, ages, their occupations, and race; along with entries for the attending physician’s signature, and relevant name and date of the accepting local official authorizing the birth certificate.
Hawaii birth certificates at the time also carried an additional questionnaire, in the form of a detachable form, containing a series of public health questions. Among the questions on that form were queries on “legitimate” births; racial classifications; pregnancy history of the mother, including specific questions about previous fetal deaths, post-delivery child deaths, number of living children; weight of baby -- at that time premature babies were classified as “immature.”
There was also a more detailed ethnic breakdown in order to determine whether the child was “native-born Hawaiian,” a term that applies to people with certain quantum blood and which grants additional rights to Hawaiians with proven native blood lineage.
Obama has not claimed to be an ethnic Hawaiian. Fukino said she did not believe that public health questions and answers were ever released. The copy currently in the health department safe contains the full public health questions as answered by Obama’s mother at the time of his birth.
In 2008, then-candidate Obama released his “certification of live birth,” the current and only official birth document released by the state of Hawaii. Hawaii did not provide copies of original long-form documents since converting to electronic records between 1989 and 2001, said health department spokeswoman Janice Okubo.
Fukino, who left office in December, said that during her term as health director, Obama’s birth certificate was moved from a file vault, where bound books containing vital records line the shelves in handwritten, leather-bound ledgers, in colors chosen over the course of decades -- and placed inside the vault’s 5-foot-tall, gray, metal combination and key lock safe that holds money and other valuables.
"After the 2008 elections, the Department of Health received a significant number of requests for a copy of President Obama's original birth registration by individuals who believe that the president is not a U.S. citizen,” Fukino explained.
“To assure the safety of the record, the bound volume was removed from the file vault and placed into a fireproof safe with limited access.”
Fukino was ordered by then-Gov. Linda Lingle to view the document in 2008, and said she remains among the very few to have seen it.
Obama’s original certificate of live birth is bound with one ledger containing 499 other certificates of people born in Hawaii in 1961, according to Fukino. There are 500 sheets per book, and 35 volumes of 1961 birth records. The last series of digits in the registration number found on Hawaiian long-form and current computerized-format birth certificates indicate which number volume the original document can be found inside the health department first-floor vault. According to Fukino, all books bound in the 1960s, including the one containing Obama’s birth certificate, have a bright orange elasticized canvas cover and the year of the birth designated on its spine.
The issue of Obama’s birth certificate has generated new interest in recent weeks following comments made by businessman Donald Trump, a potential Republican candidate who has repeatedly raised the issue.
But Fukino said the original document was moved some time earlier, in response to a resurgence of interest raised by comments made by Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie on the issue, and “to abide by state law in protecting the document from unauthorized use or theft.”
Earlier this year, Abercrombie called off his much-publicized promise to reveal Obama’s birth records. Hawaii state law dating back to 1949 precludes the disclosure of vital records, including birth certificates, to anyone without a justifiable interest -- i.e. is the subject or relative of the record -- and it remains unclear why Abercrombie would have vowed to disclosure the records in the first place.
source : Foxnews
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