Lately I've been coming across alot of birthers parroting Corsi in demanding Obama release a 'microfiche' or 'microfilm' version of a birth certificate. They insist that this will end the conspiracy for them, which is an utter lie given their constant moving of goalposts over this issue. In anycase I think it's worthwhile that we assess the relevance of a microfilm or microfiche birth certificate.

What do you know about microfilm birth certificates?

As I understand, hospitals don't issue them anymore?

Can they be used at the DMV like any normal form of I.D or are they little different from the footsie ones (souvenir BC).

I've scowered google to get more info on microfilm BC's but I can't find much info on these. It seems that birthers can't seem to rationalize why they'd want it, aside from just making more excuses over this issue. I don't think the county hospitals supply them anymore do they? Do any fogbowers have any good websites regarding microfilm BC's and their usefullness as I.D??

Corsi invented the micrifiche conspiracy when Arpaio got involved, and Arpaio dutifully said "we need the microfilm...if we can just examine the microfilm roll to see if it's been tampered with..." This is because the mother of the Nordyke twins (who were born the same week as Obama) showed her daughters' BC's and they looked like this:



My understanding is that she said she got those in the '60's, which is conceivable technology for the time. There is no proof anywhere indicating or even suggesting that Hawai'i uses microfilm or microfiche for anything.

Hawaii hospitals didn't and still don't issue "birth certificates" as such at all (other than the souvenirs). Birth certificates were and still are issued by the DOH from birth event information provided to them by the hospitals. Obviously the means by which the hospitals supplied that birth event information to the DOH has changed and evolved over the years and is apparently now largely done by electronic transfer of data.

I'm not absolutely sure but my understanding from the info dredged up in the last several years is that Hawaii hospitals in 1961 provided only paper hard copy birth event information to the DOH. It is up to DOH to decide how they stored birth event information at any given time in their history. If and when it was the practice to create and store birth event information in microfiche or microfilm form in addition to hard paper copy form or as an alternative to hard copy paper form, it would have been the DOH who did the microfilming, not the hospital, including in 1961. I'm prepared to sand corrected if it's wrong but I'm not at all sure that Hawaii hospitals would have ever themselves created microfiche or microfilm birth event information and then sent the fiche/film to the DOH.

Incidentally, just as an aside and perhaps a little boost to our USA contributors who might feel that this prolonged 'mess' over Obama's birth records leaves a stain (whether justified or not), I'd like to just say that USA actually still pretty much leads the world in the supply of Health Information systems. We are British, but right now my wife is engaged as a consultant applications specialist installing, operating and training staff regarding a Cerner (USA based) Health Infomatics system from into Middle East Govt Health Departments including the maternity hospitals. The system enables electronic management and record keeping of every stage of the expectant mother's care from diagnosis and pre-natal right through to birth certificate production and virtually eliminates all other record keeping. As an old school degree qualified midwife who is now expert in Health Infomatics systems she has ran the gamut of emotions and opinions on the nature of birth event management and record keeping over the years but has very little but praise for the advances which have been made.

Only birthers have ever suggested that Hawaii keeps birth records on microfilm or microfiche. Nobody from the Dept. of Health of Hawaii has ever even hinted at such a thing. In fact, Dr. Chiyome Fukino specifically said they still have the original paper birth certificate.

My understanding is that when a state converts all its birth records to microfilm/microfiche, they destroy the original papers. That's the whole point, to reduce storage space.

YMMV.

Just because a document is white print on a black background does not mean its a microfiche.

Before photocopiers became common one of the main ways of copying documents was the photostat machine which produced a negative document. Its very conceivable that in the early 60's they were still using photostat machines at the DOH rather than the new and presumably rather expensive photocopiers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photostat_machine

I believe that call for the microfilm is to establish that The Birth Certificate was actually created in the same time frame as the other August 1961 birth certificates. Under the theory that one was inserted or the number reused, the ones in the microfilmed August 1961 sequence wouldn't show the Baby Obama document.

For whatever reason, my parents still have all of our birth certificates that they requested shortly after our births from the DoH here. They are all on black paper with white printing and some handwritten stuff like signatures. Maybe that is the photostat that fava mentioned, but whatever it is, it looks just like the ones in the photo. We were all born in MS, between 1958 and 1964.

For the most part, microfilm and microfiche copies were used by the Vital Statistics folks in each state as a means of archiving the original paper birth certificates. The Nordyke twins certified copies likely came from a microfilm or microfiche copy of their original paper BCs. Microfilming was an earlier version of electronic birth certicates, which most call COLBs today. This archival onto film preserved the originals from having to be continually used to make the certified copies.

The main reason that Corsi/Arpaio want the microfilm and/or microfiche is based on the conspiracy theory that Obama's BC was fabricated at some date after the original microfilming/microfiching was done. They want to check for splicing of his BC into a microfilm roll or a different ordering of the BCs on a microfiche sheet.

As I mentioned when I first joined the herd, in the early 1990s I wrote computer routines to enter birth, fetal death, marriage and death certificate records into computer databases. These electronic databases would then be used to print out the requested certificate, which would be much faster than finding the microfilm roll and printing the requested vital record. I did this for four states. Most, of not all States received grants from the Feds to implement this electonic conversion. The Feds had another reason from preservation of the originals to have the individual states go to electronic versions. They were interested in the industry and occupations of the parents, newlyweds or decedents listed on the different vital records. The Feds developed an elaborate coding system for these industries and occupations, but needed the data in electronic form to do the analysis.

I had to change the code several times to handle the changes in the data organization and content on the vital records over time. Each of the four states submitted microfilm rolls of their vital records for the data entry contracts. The company that I developed the data entry software for purchased microfilm readers and hired young women to do the entry. The entered data was verified to minimize mistakes. I say minimize because no database is without errors and omissions.

Anyway, Corsi and Arpaio know that this is pure bullshit, but they have to create another source of bullshit to fling at the President. They know that any archival system will have anomalies. They are just hoping to create suspicion because Hawaii won't allow inspection of their archival records. And if they got their wish somehow, that an anomaly would occur with Obama's information. The Holy Grail for Birthers!! Birthers, like most conspiracy theorists love to take normal anomalies (i really like that term) and turn them into proof of their conspiracy of the day.

Well, what they really want to do is just have something to make up lies about, but you know that. They have a checklist of imaginary anomalies to "prove" pretty much anything is a "forgery."

They know they will never get a judge to accept their notion of "probable cause" and issue any kind of order allowing them to 'inspect' anything. They can get away with making up claims and watch the birfers lap them up and regurgitate them all over the tubes. If only people were as assiduous about getting the facts as they are confirming their biases, we would not be talking about this.

My Hawaiian BC looks just like the Nordyke's.

Several of you here at TFB will probably remember, back in the days when the birthers were telling everyone who would listen to them that anybody could get a Hawaiian birth certificate even if they weren't born there, that I decided to put it to the test and try to get a Hawaiian BC for myself. Unsurprisingly, I failed to accomplish my mission because I was not, in fact, born in Hawaii. Imagine that, birthers talking shit and lying.

I'll just have to make do with the battered copy of my Georgia BC instead.