Government warns even real birth certificates not proof Report: 'A number of state practices create opportunities for fraud'

By Bob Unruh

A report from the Office of the Inspector General from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services concluded years before the dispute erupted over President Obama's birth certificate and his eligibility to be president such documents "may ... not be the best proof of identity."

The report compiled in 2000 by Inspector General June Gibbs Brown deals primarily with using birth certificates to establish identity, not necessarily birth location as is the issue with Obama's document.

But the report raises a number of alarms about the use of the documents.

"It was the consensus of those we interviewed that a number of state practices create opportunities for fraud. Those practices include the following: delayed, amended, and midwife birth registrations that are based on affidavits of personal knowledge, include no documentary evidence, and are not often marked or overlaid accordingly; delays in matching death and birth records can make the identities of many deceased persons easy to assume between the time the person dies and the time the death and birth records are matched; questionable physical security situations that create opportunities for fraud; and limited oversight of local issuing entities by state vital records offices," the report said. ....