Optical Character Recognition

Sheriff Joe Arpiao created a dust devil in the media this week when the Maracopa County Sheriff told reporters the following:

“A six month long investigation conducted by my cold case posse has lead me to believe there is probable cause to believe that President Barack Obama’s long-form birth certificate released by the White House on April 27, 2011, is a computer-generated forgery.”

Investigators advised Sheriff Arpaio that the forgers committed two crimes: first, in creating a fraudulent document which the White House characterized, knowingly or unknowingly, as an officially produced governmental birth record; and second, in fraudulently presenting that document to the residents of Maricopa County and to the American public at large as “proof positive” of President Obama’s authentic 1961 Hawaii long-form birth certificate…

“The fact that we were able to cast reasonable suspicion on the authenticity of the Registrar stamps is especially disturbing, since these stamp imprints are designed to provide government authentication to the document itself,” Zullo said…

During the six-month-long investigation and after having developed probable cause to believe the long-form birth certificate is a computer-generated forgery, investigators began examining other evidence of President Obama’s life history including:

President Obama’s Selective Service card is most likely also a forgery, revealed by an examination of the postal date stamp on the document.

To quell the popular idea that Obama was actually born outside the United States, we examined the Records of Immigration and Naturalization Service cards routinely filled out by airplane passengers arriving on international flights that originated outside the United States in the month of August 1961. Those records are housed at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. Interestingly, records from the days surrounding Obama’s birth, August 1, 1961 to August 7, 1961 are missing. This is the only week in 1961 were these immigration cards cannot be found.”

Suspecting that the long form birth certificate is a computer generated forgery, they now say they have identified persons of interest in the case.

Sheriff’s Investigator Mike Zullo says, “We have also determined during the course of our investigation that the Hawaii Department of Health engaged in what we believe is a systematic effort to hide any original 1961 birth records that they may have in their possession.”

Sheriff Arpaio added, “A continuing investigation is needed to not only understand more about the creation of the alleged birth certificate forgery, but also to determine who, if anyone, in the White House or the state of Hawaii may have authorized it.”

The Cold Case Posse produced six technical videos to demonstrate why the Obama long-form birth certificate is suspected to be a computer-generated forgery. The videos were designed to display the testing used by the investigators to examine various claims made when the April 27 document was posted on the White House website for public dissemination. The videos consisted of step-by-step computer demonstrations using a control document.

They also illustrate point-by-point the investigators conclusion that the features and anomalies observed on the Obama long-form birth certificate were inconsistent with features produced when a paper document is scanned, even if the scan of the paper document had been enhanced by Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and optimized.

Additionally, the videos demonstrated that the Hawaii Department of Health Registrar’s name stamp and the Registrar’s date stamp were computer-generated images imported from an unknown source into an electronic document, as opposed to actual rubber stamp imprints inked by hand or machine onto a paper document.

If the Registrar stamps are forgeries, then the document itself is a forgery…Absent the authentic Hawaii Department of Health 1961 birth records for Barack Obama, there is no other credible proof supporting the idea or belief that this President was born in Hawaii, or in the United States for that matter, as he and the White House have consistently asserted,” Arpaio said.