The Fogbow: Birthers Debunked :: Obama's Social Security number

One of the favorite Birther claims is that President Obama is using a Social Security number that was somehow fraudulently stolen from a man who was born in Connecticut in 1890. Like all birther lies, this one is refuted by the evidence.

TRUTH: President Obama's Social Security number (if he hasn't been issued a new one since his original one was spread all over the Internet) begins with the digits 042. While this is ordinarily an indication that the number was issued to someone living in Connecticut, the Social Security Administration says:

One should not make too much of the "geographical code." It is not meant to be any kind of useable geographical information. The numbering scheme was designed in 1936 (before computers) to make it easier for SSA to store the applications in our files in Baltimore since the files were organized by regions as well as alphabetically. It was really just a bookkeeping device for our own internal use and was never intended to be anything more than that.

Orly Taitz recently received, in response to an FOIA request, the SS-5 (Application for Social Security Card) of a man who appears in the Social Security death index with a number just one digit lower than President Obama's. This man, Thomas Wood, was born in 1962 and died in 1981. The SS-5 showed he had requested his Social Security number on March 21, 1977. President Obama's number was probably issued the same day. It is perfectly reasonable that a high school sophomore would be requesting a Social Security number in the spring, while getting ready to start a summer job at Baskin Robbins.

The first three digits of a Social Security number at that time were called the "Area Number". And it's true that the Area Number 042 is normally issued for people who live in Connecticut (or apply for the Social Security card with a mailing address in Connecticut). President Obama lived in Hawaii in 1977, while attending Punahou School. He attended Punahoufrom the fifth grade until graduating in 1979, and his first job was at the Baskin Robbins at the corner of King and Punahou Streets in Honolulu.

So how did President Obama get a Social Security number with an Area Number reflecting residence (or mailing address) in Connecticut?

Most likely, this was due to a clerical error. At the time, President Obama was only 15 years old, and lived with his grandparents in an address on Beretania Street. The President’s house in Hawaii was in zip code 96814 and the zip code for Danbury, CT. is 06814. Since the '0' and '9' on a typical typewriter are immediately adjacent (remember, the president's Social Security number was issued in 1977, when data entry was via keypunch and data cards), it would have been a common error to accidently type a '0' when the ZIP code really began with a '9'. Another possibility is that President Obama, a left-handed 15 year old boy at the time, may have written his own ZIP code in a less-than-fully-legible manner, making the '9' look somewhat like a '0'.

In any event, there is no evidence whatever that President Obama's Social Securiy number was obtained by fraud.

CLAIM: The number issued to Barack Obama was issued to a man born in 1890. His grandmother worked in the Hawaii Probate Court and had access to Social Security Numbers of dead people, so she stole one for Barry.

TRUTH: The complete affidavit signed by Susan Daniels in the Barnett v. Obama case is at the bottom of this page. As you can see on p. 5 of the affidavit, the number "1890" appears without explanation, just above two dates. It does not say the Social Security number of President Obama was issued to a man born in 1890. It does not say anything about a man born in the year 1890. It's not even clearly intended to be a date, as the two numbers below it are. It is just a number on the page.

Nevertheless, the birthers, led by deranged lunatic Orly Taitz and based upon this record, decided to fabricate the lie that President Obama's birth certificate was issued to a male (why not a female?) who was born in 1890.

In the detailed report on pages 6-13, we can see where the 1890 date comes from. From 1988 to 1991, Barack Obama attended Harvard Law School and lived in a basement apartment at 365 Broadway in Somerville, MA. There are NINE entries for this Somerville address. All are the SSN number ending in 4425. DOB: 4 are 8/4/1961, 1 for 4/8/1961, 2 have no DOB, 1 has 1990, 1 has 1890. [note -- pre-Y2K most dates in the US were written as MM/DD/YY. The Y2K conversion forced older data to conform to MM/DD/YYYY. It's easy to see how 1890 and 1990 could be the same number

This is a prime example of why these databases are merely the starting point for an investigation. A rational person might look at those entries and conclude that 4/8/1961 is an entry error and the two incomplete entries are bad data given the strong correlation between the 8/4/1961 and the SSN in other entries. They would move on to the next set of addresses. Birthers, however, see the same data and conclude the number was stolen from a guy born in 1890.

CLAIM: An intensive investigation has revealed the identity of the man whose Social Security Number (SSN) is being used by President Obama was Jean Paul Ludwig who was born in France in 1890, immigrated to the United States in 1924, and was assigned SSN 042-xx-xxxx ( Obama's current SSN ) rec'd on or about March 1977. Ludwig spent the final months of his life in Hawaii, where he died.

Conveniently, Obama's grandmother, Madelyn Payne Dunham, worked part-time in the Probate Office in the Honolulu Hawaii Courthouse, and therefore had access to the SSNs of deceased individuals.

The Social Security Administration was never informed of Ludwig's death, and because he never received Social Security benefits there were no benefits to
stop and therefore, no questions were ever raised.

TRUTH: Jean Paul Ludwig is in the Social Security Death Index. You can check it yourself at http://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=3693

Ludwig's SSN is 045-26-8722, not the same as President Obama's, which is SSN 042-xx-xxxx. Image and more at ObamaConspiracy.org.

Ludwig died in 1981 and his SSN was issued in 1951. Obama's number shows it was issued in 1977.

Madelyn Dunham volunteered in the Probate Court starting in 1986, after she retired. She also didn't work with wills and dead people. She worked Oahu Circuit Court, where she served as a court observer, probate aide and arbitrator for the Juvenile Monetary Restitution Program. Story here.

Col. Greg Hollister, USAF (Ret.), is a birther with a colorful history of questioning the constitutional legitimacy of presidents. He once accused President Clinton of having "gone to Eastern Europe and participated in communist demonstrations against the Vietnam War while we were at war with communism there." He was the plaintiff in one of Phil Berg's lawsuits, known as Hollister v. Soetoro, filed on Dec. 31, 2008. That case was dismissed by the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. (and Hollister's other attorney in the case, John D. Hemenway, was sanctioned with an official reprimand for bringing a frivolous claim before the court). The case was appealed and denied all the way to the Supreme Court, which also denied a Petition for Rehearing. For full information about all the birther lawsuits including this one, see the Birther Case Scorecard (PDF).

Social Security Number Verification System - Falsely Pretending to Be President Obama's Employer

Sometime in late 2010, Col. Hollister apparently pretended to be an employer of President Obama, in order to obtain his Social Security records. He claims he sent a Form 1099 to the president, and then used the Social Security Number Verification System (SSNVS) to obtain a record of the number that President Obama was known to have had since he was 15 years old (and which has been published all over the Internet, particularly by deranged lunatic Orly Taitz).

Hollister did manage to obtain a record from the SSNVS, shown below. It said that President Obama's original Social Security number was "never issued". However, what Col. Hollister did in obtaining that record -- falsely claiming that he was an employer and that President Obama was his employee -- is a crime. For a description of why this is a crime and a good explanation as to why President Obama's original Social Security number has probably been withdrawn and is now officially recorded as "never issued," read this blog entry at Obama Conspiracy Theories.

After viewing the SSNVS record below, continue reading about Col. Hollister impersonating President Obama in order to obtain a copy of his draft (Selective Service) card.

Note that Col. Hollister redacted the phony "Employer's EIN" and the address information showing that the record was mailed to him in Colorado Springs.

Selective Service Registration Card - Falsely Impersonating the President

Next, Col. Hollister contacted the Selective Service, falsely impersonated President Obama, improperly registered his own address as President Obama's address, and by this false impersonation and identity theft he managed to obtain a duplicate registration acknowledgement card with President Obama's Selective Service information on it.

This may violate several federal criminal statutes, and apparently caused the federal record of President Obama's address with the Selective Service to be altered to show that he lives in Colorado Springs, CO.

Hollister then sent the stolen draft card to Orly Taitz, who filed it in federal court. The full duplicate registration acknowledgment is seen below. Col. Hollister redacted the mailing address in an attempt to conceal his involvement in the identity theft. However, unbeknownst to Col. Hollister, there was a POSTNET bar code showing the address to which the card was sent. A selected crop of the duplicate registration acknowledgment shows this:

POSTNET bar code

The bar code is a POSTNET code, and you can see how to read the POSTNET code here.

Fogbow member Raicha explains:

Five digit zip: 80908 - this is in Colorado Springs, according to the United States Postal Service
+Plus 4, identifies the neighborhood: 3034.
Googling that neighborhood: 80908-3034, gives you several addresses in the 6700 block of Connaught Drive in Colorado Springs
The last three digits of the POSTNET code are 302, which are a delivery point (30) and a check digit. Typically, the identifier, in this case 30, identifies the specific street number in the neighborhood.
This then identifies the house number: 6730

Google 6730 Connaught Drive, and a public property record pops up for Gregory Hollister.

Hollister was a plaintiff in a birther case (Hollister v. Soetoro) that was dismissed in federal court, unsuccessfully appealed, and denied without comment by the Supreme Court (twice). He is a long-time birther. After he obtained the illicit draft card, he sent it to Orly Taitz. Orly promptly filed the stolen draft card in federal court, and posted about it here.

The Selective Service record Col. Hollister obtained by falsely impersonating the President.

Note the language on the card expressly stating that the card was intended ONLY for the "registrant": President Obama.