Hawaii: Law Bars Release of Obama Birth Certificate

Governor says he's hit a dead end in bid to stop birthers
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Suggested by anothernewsjunkie
Posted Jan 22, 2011 12:01 PM CST
Hawaii: Law Bars Release of Obama Birth Certificate
In this Nov. 2, 2010 photo, Hawaii Governor-Elect Neil Abercrombie addresses his supporters in Honolulu.   (AP Photo/Eugene Tanner)

A privacy law that shields birth certificates has prompted Democratic Gov. Neil Abercrombie to abandon efforts to dispel claims that President Obama was born outside Hawaii, his office says. The state's attorney general told the governor that privacy laws bar him from disclosing an individual's birth documentation without the person's consent. "There is nothing more that Gov. Abercrombie can do within the law to produce a document," said the governor's spokeswoman. "Unfortunately, there are conspirators who will continue to question the citizenship of our president."

Abercrombie, who was a friend of Obama's parents and knew him as a child, launched an investigation last month into whether he can release more information about the president's Aug. 4, 1961, birth. But now he's hit a dead end. Hawaii's health director said in 2008 and 2009 that she had seen and verified Obama's original 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. (More birthers stories.)

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