Idiots Launch Obama Birth Certificate 'Layers' Conspiracy

[MrObama]

Run time: 10:28 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3g30VCl_cgk   Posted on YouTube: April 28, 2011 By YouTube Member: TheAlexJonesChannel Views on YouTube: 36261   Posted on DU: April 28, 2011 By DU Member: MrObama Views on DU: 5988

 

[mckara]

1. Idiots! I Could Only Take 30 Seconds of His BS

[FarLeftFist]

61. Expert analysis

"I’ve actually downloaded the original PDF file and inspected its layers and I can tell you for a fact that they are not the type of layers that would be created using Illustrator to manipulate a document. They are the kind of layers that would have been automatically created programmatically by an OCR program which was simply trying to isolate black text from a background to make it more legible. The layers aren’t named, and they contain various artifacts from other pieces of the document. Even if you toggle the black layers, the underlying document data contains the white imprints of the words above it. This is exactly in line with the type of PDF that you would expect an OCR-enabled scanner to produce. It is *NOT* in line with any type of image manipulation that someone would do with Photoshop, and I’ve been using Photoshop to manipulate images on a professional basis for the past 16 years, so I would know."-Expert analysis.

Why does anyone believe republicans even know how to correctly use Illustrator or photoshop?!

[Dane]

63. What the hell?

Where in the hell do these people come from?

[Dokkie]

2. I think this was a HUGE mistake

If he was going to release it, he should have done this in the 1st few months the birthers demanded it. Now he releases it when a Rich, tax dodging, TV host requests it.

Big mistake on Obama's part

[neoralme]

5. It was not well thought out. I still cannot figure out why it was

done. I doubt if this turned many opinions, but I also doubt the assertion by the Repubs that the new birth certificate is a fraud will turn many opinions either. I'm a lot more worried about the gallon of milk I just saw posted with a price tag of $6.69.

[Dokkie]

6. lol

True, also they ignores the fact that most birthers main issue with Obama's eligibility is that his father was kenyan and showing his birth certificate after 2 years wouldn't change a thing with them. If he was going to do it, dont do it for Trump

I have an advise for the milk problem, buy powdered milk. I have 8 cans of NIDO milk (can be bought from walmart), the shelflife is I think 1 yrs and I can can make like 60 gallons of milk depending on how concentrated you like your milk. Also I think aliminium can protects it from the radiation.

[neoralme]

7. I can't drink milk. I'm diabetic. I drink Crystal Light. Tastes like

shit in Raisin Bran.

[hourglass1]

57. why give legitimacy

to the arguments of idiots? there was no need to do this until the cult grew ...

there are some very interesting and perhaps only coincidental cia connections with barack's mother, but hell, even my wife was born at home ...

guys like alex jones have too much invested in the birther claims to just simply say "sorry" or "thank you, mr. president" and move on ...

[Citizen Worker]

3. I predicted yesterday that the birthers would claim the document is a forgery. When will the

insanity stop?

[forty6]

50. When will the insanity stop? When Obama's skin, and Michelle's and their two

kid's skin turns white!

That's the very bottom line here. We all know it.

These people are just racists through and through, and now they can hide their racism behind "legalistic, forensic" photocopy talk.

[neoralme]

4. Yes, the new birth certificate has PDF layers, which can be seen in

Adobe Illustrator or even Adobe Pagemaker, I think. I haven't tried it in Elements because I don't care whether Obama is an American Citizen or not. But as the below article states it is ridiculous to assume that whoever went to the trouble of layering the BC for whatever reason was so stupid that they forgot to merge the layers is ridiculous. What probably happened is someone forgot to turn off the OCR setting on the scanner. The people talking continuously about layers meaning lies don't have a leg to stand on. But the electorate is so uninformed they think something bad has been uncovered. These are the same folks who voted for the Republicans last year. There doesn't appear to be any way to combat this.

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/265767/pdf-layers-obamas-birth-certificate-nathan-goulding

[The Backlash Cometh]

11. Here's the answer

From your link:

UPDATE: I’ve confirmed that scanning an image, converting it to a PDF, optimizing that PDF, and then opening it up in Illustrator, does in fact create layers similar to what is seen in the birth certificate PDF. You can try it yourself at home.

[urgk]

27. But, what is the likelihood that would give identical letter forms?

If you zoom in to individual pixels, some of the lower-case i's are exact duplicates.

And in a related question, why is the form xeroxed and reproduced onto the green sheet?

[John1956PA]

37. I think I can answer your second question.

Departments of Health (or corresponding departments) in all states issue birth certificates every day for people of all ages. It is not uncommon for the issuing department to generate birth certificates on security paper such as the green security paper on which the President's long form appears. With regard to President Obama's birth record on file in the Hawaii Department of Health, the original document on which the long form information appears is bound in a volume of such documents regarding numerous babies born in the applicable time frame. The pages bound in said bound volume are white, and the information thereon was entered via typewriter and hand writing. On April 25, 2011, an employee of the Hawaii Department of Health (upon being directed to so by his or her superiors) opened the bound volume to the page where President Obama's long form birth information appears. The employee placed the opened volume on the lens of the photocopier which is used to produce certificates. The photocopier was loaded (as per procedure) with green security paper. One or more photocopies of of the aforesaid page were produced. The bottom of each photocopy was stamped with the date, April 25, 2011. Thereafter, the Hawaii state Registrar signed each photocopy, thereby converting each one to an official (long form) birth certificate.

As an aside, I would add that there is no way that the applicable birth records department of any state would allow any original birth document to be removed from the safekeeping of the department.

[urgk]

53. Wow. Thank you. That was incredibly informative.

I don't have anything else to add...except thanks again.

:)

[hourglass1]

58. Thank you, John1956PA !

[The Backlash Cometh]

43. Wouldn't that require knowing the scanner that was actually used?

And then get a technician to explain instead of falling for this Dan Rather/swiftboating crappola?

[GKirk]

14. I do care about if Obama is a US citizen

" I don't care whether Obama is an American Citizen or not"

mostly because I don't like to be lied to. But I'm not getting this so called layers thing.

Can someone take a genuine BC and make the same stuff happen to it on a computer?

[The Backlash Cometh]

16. Their expert is a man in a Hawaiian shirt.

I guess he knows what he's talking about.

[Dokkie]

yes

Run time: 10:28 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3g30VCl_cgk   Posted on YouTube: April 28, 2011 By YouTube Member: TheAlexJonesChannel Views on YouTube: 36261   Posted on DU: April 28, 2011 By DU Member: Dokkie Views on DU: 5988

 
cos we all know that wearing a Hawaiian shirt disqualifies you from being an expert in anything. Jesus Christ, if you dont have anything to contribute then stay out. Theres not need bumping another yet birther video

[The Backlash Cometh]

41. He doesn't come across very professional.

This is suppose to be a debunking of a president's birth certificate, and the guy doesn't bother to dress up?

I think it's just one more example that this is just a distraction, an attempt to make noise just like the swiftboating incident.

At least those people knew how to look professional.

[W.T.People]

64. he looks like a pro

drunk......what has this fool been drinking?

[Bucky]

77. Considering that Obama comes from Hawaii instead of America, that shows his expertise.

(sorry, just practicing my rightwing idiocy skills in case I decide to go visit family this summer.)

[neoralme]

18. Yes, easily. This is one of the reasons you have to watch all

MSM photos now of everything. If the pictures aren't good enough, they'll just manipulate them. I could make birth certificates all day long, if I wanted.

[DRex]

28. His citizenship is not in question....

he would be an American citizen if he was born in Kenya, Indonesia, or Ecuador. It wouldn't matter. His mother was American and he has lived in the US for a long long time and is married to an American citizen, so his citizenship is in no way questionable.

It matters that we frame it this way, because parents conspiring to have their child be born an American citizen is not unheard of. People conspiring to make sure their foreign son can one day be POTUS, and going to elaborate lengths to fake the birth to this end, is totally unheard of and totally nuts.

If it's a citizenship issue then it seems more plausible than it is, and so it matters to make this distinction.

[neoralme]

30. Right, per Title 8 Section 1401

Currently, Title 8 of the U.S. Code fills in the gaps left by the Constitution. Section 1401 defines the following as people who are "citizens of the United States at birth:"

Anyone born inside the United States *
Any Indian or Eskimo born in the United States, provided being a citizen of the U.S. does not impair the person's status as a citizen of the tribe
Any one born outside the United States, both of whose parents are citizens of the U.S., as long as one parent has lived in the U.S.
Any one born outside the United States, if one parent is a citizen and lived in the U.S. for at least one year and the other parent is a U.S. national
Any one born in a U.S. possession, if one parent is a citizen and lived in the U.S. for at least one year
Any one found in the U.S. under the age of five, whose parentage cannot be determined, as long as proof of non-citizenship is not provided by age 21
Any one born outside the United States, if one parent is an alien and as long as the other parent is a citizen of the U.S. who lived in the U.S. for at least five years (with military and diplomatic service included in this time)
A final, historical condition: a person born before 5/24/1934 of an alien father and a U.S. citizen mother who has lived in the U.S.

[GKirk]

45. But...but...but...

...not if he's <wait for it> THE ANTI-CHRIST! (I'm thinking I should have done that in a Glen Beck voice)

"It matters that we frame it this way, because parents conspiring to have their child be born an American citizen is not unheard of. People conspiring to make sure their foreign son can one day be POTUS, and going to elaborate lengths to fake the birth to this end, is totally unheard of and totally nuts."

[spooked911]

22. but WHY was it touched up in photoshop?

and so obviously?

It is as if they want people to be suspicious of it.

[neoralme]

26. That is an excellent question, but one that the wrong answer might

give some folks here pause. I'll PM you.

[The Backlash Cometh]

42. Someone in a thread above had offered a good explanation.

In the short, OCRs scan in layers. You can get a valid document scanned and do the same in PDF.

[TheEuclideanOne]

62. This video documents it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcWQw2AAIho&feature=sh­are

These guys are beyond ignorant. They are so computer illiterate that anything shown on a computer is like magic. Fucking knuckledraggers.

[neoralme]

72. Good video. Explains a lot.

[freshwest]

8. Jones has been shilling for the Koch brothers for years! His movies are too slick to be homemade.

You can see his 'The Obama Deception,' complete with his typical angst-producing musical scores free on youtube, if you want to know what this guy is about. He encourages people arming themselves, not paying taxes, makes everything in a huge drama.

He has invested a lot the political capital he gained with his followers by making Obama the anti-Christ and whipping up hysteria. He's had the leader of the John Birch Society (Koch front) but never gave disclosure, on his show along with Ron Paul.

Never says a thing about the Koch brothers although he's gone after the Bush clan for their Nazi connections. He got people listening to him during the Bush years by spouting anti-war rhetoric and being against all things people don't want done to their bodies.

But now he's approving the Tea Party and their measures to take away choice from women state after state. Gotta aways from his fear of invasive procedure so long as it's 'pro-life.'

He has said for years that all the leaders are just puppets, and the political process is bogus, but supports the GOP Tea Party political machine. Oh, really, suddenly it's all worthwhile. Give me a freaking break!

Corsi, WND, gold sellers and doomsday suppliers make up the most of his show. That and just terrorizing his listeners on a daily basis with his malignant take on Obama, Democrats, liberals and progressives. Oh yeah, if you aren't Tea you're dumb? Try again!

He's a right wing shill and no once calls him on it. His followers defend him by saying those who aren't true believers in his swill are sheeple, want communist totalitarianism and are against the US Constitution. His only solution to all the world's problems is pushing more evangelical Christianity.

[The Backlash Cometh]

9. So when are our debunkers going to debunk their debunkers?

[GKirk]

10. I don't know who the fat guy announcer is but....

...STFU! I mean really, if you think you have something here STFU and let the guy
you claim is an expert tell us what he thinks.

[The Backlash Cometh]

13. I'm glad he's babbling on.

It will make a great clip to contrast against a test that can show you can get the same effect scanning solid documents. Just as it's explained in the post above.

They're overreaching.

[progressoid]

12. Don't care about Neaderthal's ravings.

[GKirk]

15. Any truth to the statement

that according to a poll 62% of people think he wasn't born in the USA?

[neoralme]

20. I didn't see that poll. I saw a poll that said 62% of people said there

was a Possibility he wasn't born in the US. I can't remember where that poll came from, but it seemed kind of high to me.

[Plucketeer]

17. Sadly,

I know folks who will embrace this shit with glee. I sure wish that "Rapture" thing would come to pass. It would be refreshing to have all the rubes called home! :crazy:

[GKirk]

19. The announcer; IT'S ALL A DISTRACTION!!!

"So let's spend all sorts of effort disecting this form and talking about etc..."

[Yavin4]

21. When Something Is Scanned, It Can Look Layered Depending on the Scanning Software

This is all horse shit.

[spooked911]

23. really?

I have never heard of such a thing. DO you have a link or reference?

[neoralme]

32. I'm going to try it. I have three scanners hooked up: two Canon MF4350d's

and one HP Photosmart C5580. Your post has now made me curious. I hope I see what I want to.

[urgk]

33. I'll be curious to see if there's any way to make similar letters become identical letters.

That's the thing I find so odd.

[neoralme]

39. Well you could do it by layering them with the same font, or copying

the letters from the source document to layered file. That's how I'd do it. Too hard to match fonts.

[spooked911]

34. I just verified that the BC has layers as claimed, using Adobe Illustrator

I also opened two signed documents that I had signed, and no sign of layering. FWIW.

[urgk]

36. Any chance the modifications are there to PREVENT forgeries?

It's a thought that just occurred to me, but could the resolution/clarity have been changed to prevent forged copies? I mean, if you don't have multiple grays in the majority of letters, it would be hard to make a photo-realistic print.

Any thoughts on that?

[neoralme]

38. So you must have merged your documents? I wish I could afford

Adobe Illustrator. You're lucky.

[spooked911]

47. I didn't merge my scanned docs at all

I was able to get a free copy of AI

[urgk]

35. Also, I wonder if there's any reason for some letters to show as 100% black...

...but others with at least 3-4 tones of gray. The letters that don't move with the main layer seem more...real. Not that that means anything.

[neoralme]

40. Attempt at matching or faulty OCR software. We have enough doubts

now to present a counter-case.

[urgk]

52. I just posted a link to a youtube comment about the OCR software.

Now, we're getting somewhere.

[urgk]

25. "This is all horse shit." I'd like to think so, but something isn't right at all.

If you zoom in, some of the o's and i's are definitely identical. I mean they literally have the exact same arrangement of pixels. Zoom in on "judicial district." The two i's in "judicial" and the first in "district" (in, "is place of birth..." line, not "is residence...") are absolutely the same.

I trust the President, but this makes me wonder if he's being set up.

(edited for clarity)

[chillspike]

29. Test it on another document

See if you get a similar result?

[urgk]

24. Um....has anybody actually looked at the WH pdf? It's capital "B" bizarre.

Now, I'm not saying in any way that I think the President isn't American. But that document is weird. And I mean the one from the official WH website. If you put it into Illustrator and zoom in, some of the letters are absolutely identical. I mean 100% of the pixels match.

I don't know what's going on, but it doctoring of some kind seems incredibly likely. It creeps me out.

(subject line edited to include omitted word)

[neoralme]

31. Yes, I went to a friend's house who has Illustrator. The document

looks very weird, as you say. I'm going to try and bring it up in Elements later, though that might not work.

[Dokkie]

44. Ladies and Gentlemen

Non of this would be happening if he had just ignored the birthers from the beginning. In this kind of situation, you only create greater doubt if after 2 yrs of ignoring the long form seekers, you all of a sudden release it now when requested by a Billionaire, loud mouth, New York (read: wall street) entertainer.

The geniuses advising him should all be fired yesterday.

Note to Mods
How long before we start banning birther stories here on DU, I always thought birther stories were a distraction and even worse when it is sourced from Alex Jones. if anything move it to Israeli/Palestinain section.

[CyrusV]

46. Alex Jones motto: Never let a conspiracy theory go to waste.

n/t

[lumpy]

48. I'd like to see a qualified, unbiased expert's opinion on this

piece of paper instead of armchair "experts" and doubting thomases musings.

[urgk]

49. Well, as somebody who's spent literally thousands of photoshop hours...

it looks weird. There is a combination of photo-realistic letters and one that look...odd. I'd love to hear how they prepared the file so we could test it exactly. That would do it for me.

[urgk]

51. Most satisyfing explanation yet - character recognition software.

From Gawker (quoting a youtube comment):

"It's called OCR (optical character recognition). Acrobat and many scanners do this by default. It detects letters and words on the page and allows you to add selectable text to the document without having to type it in manually.
Notice how when you hide a layer, it's white behind it? If it was truly forged, you wouldn't see any of the background missing. It's white because it doesn't know what's behind the text BECAUSE THE TEXT WAS THERE WHEN IT WAS SCANNED."

http://gawker.com/#!5796324/idiots-launch-obama-birth-certificate-layers-conspiracy

[dennis4868]

56. Thanks for the post....

this debunks the forgery allegation that some DUers started to fall for....hahaha!

[urgk]

68. Oh, I'll fall for any conspiracy theory...

...for about 15 minutes or so.

Which is why I've taught myself to run around half like a chicken with its head cut off, and half like a guy who wants to hear about Building 7 from an actual structural engineer.

:)

[peoli]

54. I just did this with my sons BC in 3 minutes.

Scan image
Save as pdf file (choose high quality not standard)
Open file in AI
Select file
Right click and select remove clipping mask
the end.

anyone can do this. there is no issue here

[neoralme]

55. This was an excellent discovery group of threads. Next, maybe we

should come up with a way to put an import tax on China.

[elana i am]

59. let me say up front i'm sure it's real. BUT...

technically it's not in layers but in pieces layered on top of each other in the same layer. illustrator has a layers option, and each of the pieces could have been put in their own layer but they are not.

i opened it in illustrator and pulled the pieces apart. the blue lines around each piece represent both bounding boxes and clipping paths. all the smaller pieces were placed over the large green background piece.

here you can see all the pieces spread out in a screen cap i made directly from illustrator:



eta: well crap i can't get the link to work as a url. i guess if the image doesn't show up for you, copy the URL and paste.

editing must have been done in photoshop, because when i removed the clipping paths from the pieces there was no more image masked off beyond the bounds of the mask (on any of the pieces). the transparent b&w bitmaps were edited individually in photoshop and were either placed into illustrator to be combined with the green background, or they were placed into image boxes in indesign and were never in illustrator to begin with. it had to be one of those two things for the bitmaps to remain transparent and the pdf to open in illustrator with seperate pieces and useless vestigal clipping masks.

whatever the case, this was a PISS POOR and totally NEEDLESSLY CONVOLUTED way of presenting it to the public, because it could hardly of been any more doctored and cobbled together looking if they tried. MASSIVE fuck up.

[urgk]

69. "whatever the case..."

Well said. I agree 100%.

[bitchkitty]

60. hot damn!

They give degrees in Photoshop? Where can I get mine?

[Yavin4]

65. For the Photoshop Geeks, Please Read

1. You are using a pdf file from the Whitehouse link. You don't know how the pdf was created, nor do you know what software was used to scan it.

2, The pdf itself is immaterial. We have an actual hard copy document that has been verified.

3. OCR software can and does change a document. The OCR software may have changed the document in order to make it text searchable. I make pdfs text searchable all of the time. Text searchable pdfs allow you to actually search for a characters in the document. It may be layering it so that the search function can highlight and find search terms.

4. To test point 3, you would need to know how they made the document text searchable. What scanning software did they use, etc.

Does that answer your questions?

[spooked911]

70. it's possible that there is some explanation like that

http://wireupdate.com/video/2011/04/president-obamas-birth-certificate-pdf-has-layers/

The whole thing is still very weird though-- that they would scan it in OCR format, then leave in the layers, not to mention the green border that doesn't make sense.

[Yavin4]

73. People Scan Documents with the Capture Text or OCR Settings on All of the Time

It's pretty routine, esp. for government documents. Having embedded text in the document allows for folks to search for key words and phrases.

[urgk]

71. First, I think the OCR explanation is right.

Second, is there any chance you could scan something with OCR and post it for us? Provided, of course, that it demonstrates the text changes in the WH doc.

Please? :)

[Yavin4]

74. Again, We Would Have to Know What The WH Used to Scan the Document

PDF scanning/OCR text recognition software comes in many flavors. What I use may not produce the exact results.

[elana i am]

76. the original scan may have been done using OCR

but there's some editing done that could only have happened either in illustrator, indesign or quark. i don't know whether or not the raw output of OCR scans of searchable text are b&w bitmaps but it must be, or the pieces had to have been opened in a raster based image editing program like photoshop and converted to b&w bitmaps. all the pieces placed on top of the green background are transparent b&w bitmaps and some of those bitmaps have had color applied to them. the only way a b&w bitmap can stay transparent and have it's color changed is if it's imported into illustrator or placed in a picture box in indesign or quark.

[Keith Bee]

66. I wonder why most of the world thinks we're insane?

:rofl:

[provis99]

67. so I wonder what their freeper user names are?

[Yavin4]

75. More Info on Text Searchable PDFs

What is PDF Searchable Image?

PDF Searchable Image is a PDF Image Only document with the addition of a text layer beneath the image. This approach inexpensively retains the look of the original page while enabling text searchability. This balanced approach is especially suitable for documents that have to be searchable but would be too expensive to recompose. The text layer is created by an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) application that scans the text on each page. It then creates a PDF file with the recognized text stored in a layer beneath the image of the text.

--More at the link--

http://www.dclab.com/pdfconversion3.asp