I just stumbled upon this news item that some lawyer is suing Barack Obama on his US-born legal status. Just politics as usual but what called my attention is that in the image of two of the lawsuit pages Wikipedia seems to appear as some sort of evidence.

At the bottom of page number 5 (the image includes page 1 and 5), after mentioning two conflicting versions of Obama's birth hospital says: Wikipedia English Version under the subject "Barack Obama"...

And the sentence is cut right there. I wonder if someone can find the rest and how relevant is Wikipedia's "testimony" on the lawsuit.

In any case, I find quite shocking that Wikipedia is even mentioned in a lawsuit, specially in one that pretends to have such major political relevance. I wouldn't question if the lawyer consulted Wikipedia, after an readily accesible and possibly, just possibly, accurate info source but to mention it in the lawsuit itself is just flippant.

IANAL but... Doesn't it not actually matter where he was born if his mother was a citizen?

Nice professional footer there... "Z:\FORMS\Obama Complaint.doc"

The full PDF is here:

http://www.obamacrimes.com/attachments/001...maComplaint.pdf



This is the bit that mentions wikipedia. There doesn't seem to be anything more substantive than wikipedia for this claim.



If there is anything LESS reliable than wikipedia for this, it is unspecified "circulating on the internet".

Lawyer seems to think that it is somehow relevant whether or not his mother was born in the US, while not disputing her citizenship. (IANAL again but) "natural-born" doesn't work that way; your parents, grandparents, ad infinitum, don't have to be natural-born for you to be.

What if he was from his mother's womb untimely ripp'd?

I should be able to get ahold of the Complaint from the court's electronic filing system if anyone really wants, although I'm sure that it will be all over the 'net anyway within a day or two.

I suspect that the purpose of this case is to neutralize the assertion that Senator McCain is not eligible for the presidency because he too supposedly is not a "natural-born citizen" (he was born in the Panama Canal Zone at a time when the citizenship status of residents of that zone was ambiguous). Neither challenge is going anywhere.

Not only complaints filed by lawyers but even actual court decisions, both in the United States and elsewhere, have cited Wikipedia articles, but fortunately (as far as I know) they have done so only for generic background information not really relevant to the outcome of the case. Any serious reliance on a Wikipedia article by counsel or a court would be impermissible, and rightly so, under the rules of evidence.

I thought it was because Arizona wasn't a state yet when he was born (lulz aside, at one point I actually did think Arizona hadn't become a state until the 40s or something, and that's where my mind went when I heard about the claims that he might not be a citizen)

Seriously, though, I thought that as long as your mother is a citizen (or your father is and they're married), you're a natural-born citizen no matter where you're born, and I'm pretty sure neither candidate's mother's citizenship is in question. Was my belief incorrect?

Some information on Hawaii Birth Certificates.

Here's a Hawaii registration of birth:

Registration of Birth

Whenever someone pays their ten dollars and asks for a birth certificate, a Hawaii civil servant extracts some fields from the birth registration and types up a birth certificate which looks like this:

Birth Certificate

(The above birth certificate was created some time after November, 2001)

Many persons have never seen an copy of their original record of birth.

Yes; I'm a US citizen by birth but because my dad was posted overseas when I was born (and my mom with him) I'm ineligible to stand for President; presidential candidates need to have been born on American soil. (There was a member of some European Royal family born in London once where the hospital bed was formally ceded to their home country to allow them to get round a similar restriction).

I'm pretty familiar with the literature on this issue. There is no caselaw on point (it is not at all clear that any court would venture to decide the eligibility issue anyway), but the strong consensus of the scholarly authority is that your statement is not true.

You will be happy to know you can run for President. You are a natural born citizen of the United States and the requirement to run for President is that you are a natural born citizen. You do not have to have been born in the United States. (There is a dispute on whether or not the meaning of "natural born citizen" in the Constitution means the same as what "natural born citizen" means in present day law.)

NB. I have a nephew who is a natural born citizen of three countries.

McCain was born in Florida in the then American-controlled Egland Airforce Base or Eglin Air Force Base.

At least for several days on Wikipedia, he was, until they discovered that the "canal zone is nowhere near Florida", and a couple of days later further discovered that Eglin AFB is not located in Panama.

(Estimated 90,000+ page views of these mistakes before they were fixed. Wikipedia is always improving, because anyone can edit it!)

Canada. This was however the inspiration of the film "Passport to Pimlico".

Crown Prince Alexander of Yugoslavia, born in room 212 of Claridge's Hotel in London (temporarily made Yugoslav territory for the occasion by George VI). You learn all kind of useful things off teh interwebs.

Sounds like quite a fascinating area. Of course, the UK Head of State has not always been British, and the Canadian/Australian/New Zealand/other Commonwealth Realms have never been citizens of those countries.

A member of the House of Commons doesn't have to hold UK citizenship. Citizens of other Commonwealth countries or Ireland are eligible, too, meaning the Prime Minister doesn't have to be British. Andrew Bonar Law is the only UK PM (for six months or so from 1922-23) to date to have been born outside the UK, being born in Canada (though a few years prior to Canada's confederation in 1867).



As someone with a keen interest in the Royal Prerogative, I'd love to know whether that is literal and the succession of territory, albeit temporarily, was granted in such a way.

Sometimes these things are permanent. The spot in Hawaii where Captain Cooke died was deeded to Britain. There's an acre of territory around the JFK memorial at Runnymede in England, deeded to the US in 1965 as US territory. I presume if a woman managed to give birth upon this acre, that child could be claimed a US citizen as jus soli. The same for crimes committed on that spot, which could presumably be prosecuted under US, not British law. So don't kill anybody near the JFK memorial, or you could find yourself facing the death penalty . Of course, if you managed to flee to the UK (a few feet away) for that reason they'd refuse to extradite you.

From what I've seen of it, that lawsuit seems very sloppily done; while its claim might even be true, it doesn't do a good job of presenting it as anything that can actually be proven in court, rather than a hodgepodge of Internet rumors.

I can see the confusion. Eglin AFB is located near Panama City, Florida.

Actually, you're eligible. You have to be a "natural born citizen", which does not mean born on the soil of the United States. It merely means that you must have been a citizen at the time of your birth. Since both of your parents were citizens at the time of your birth, at least one of them had at some time resided in the United States (I assume), you are a citizen from birth, and therefore a natural born citizen and therefore eligible to be serve as President, assuming you are also at least 35 years of age and have resided in the United States continuously for the past 14 years.

U.S. Embassies, Military Bases, etc. are considered "U.S. Soil" — not to be confused with "Soylent Green". However, you retain the right to opt for citizenship in the land of your actual birth. Or so I was told.

Jon

Damn, I knew taking that job in England was a mistake, or I'd have been so there.

Thanks, Random. I see that for the Kenyan birth theory there is no more substance apparently (a Kenyan b.c. is mentioned but seems equally ghostly). I don't know about the Indonesian citizenship part but it seems clear that the Berg's mentioning Wikipedia as evidence of anything is just ridiculous.

The problem as I see it (I am not a lawyer) is that, even if it's all true, I don't believe the US has any provision for someone originally a native (i.e. not immigrant/naturalized) citizen to "accidentally" or involuntarily lose their US citizenship.

This establishes nothing except that the plaintiff paid a filing fee. It is pretty much irresponsible for media, including blogs etc to report something on the basis of a filing without 1) waiting for the pleadings to tested by 12( b )( 6 ), demurrer, summary judgment or other appropriate motions to establish some at least minimal bona fides; or 2)independently investigating the merits of the claim. That the pleadings rely on Wikipedia says about all that needs to be said.

I don't think this guy (who is representing himself, although he seems to be an attorney) is anything but a nutcase and the article's claims of his "prominence" need to taken with a grain of salt even if he did hold a non-paid county level position with the democratic party.

He apparently is also a 9-11 "truther". Here he is described as a "nutbar supreme". Click here for video.

Given his number of "ghits" (nearly 13,000), I'm a bit surprised he doesn't have his own BLP. But then, maybe he did have one, but forced Jimbo to "wish it into the cornfield" by threatening suit. Can you imagine what that complaint would have looked like?

It probably cited Wikipedia for proof.

Oddly enough that would actually be appropriate.

Someone told me a story once about a a friend of theirs, an American citizen, who obtained an Irish passport because he/she met the rather loose requirements to qualify for one. That friend, on a trip to Ireland, elected to use their Irish passport to enter the country and it was stamped upon entry. Later, when that person applied for a US Government position and was undergoing a security screening, he/she was dismayed to find out that US law states that if you use another country's passport as this person did, it qualifies as renouncing your US citizenship. In this case, the person was denied the job and security clearance.

US Citizens are required to use a US passport to re-enter the country.

Being a citizen of multiple countries can be difficult because you will need to use multiple passports and you must use the correct one at the correct time. (And, it is best for immigration to not see that you have multiple passports.)

Edit: I think there are two problems with what your friend that could result in his denial:
a) To obtain Irish citizenship and a passport he would have had to have declared his allegiance to Ireland.
He broke the law by using the wrong passport went entering the US.

That is kinda not strictly true. See the following;

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/8/1481.html

An eligible US citizen can obtain an Irish passport / citizenship through the so-called "granny rule" but simply becoming a dual national does not automatically disqualify you. You need to do something like make an active statement of renunciation, commit a "treasonable act" or work for a foreign government (surprisingly simple to trip on this one!).

At one point, the default was that in the event of any of these acts having become known to the USCIS, it defaulted to renunciation. However, in the early 1990s, this all changed so it's actually harder now to renounce your US citizenship, especially inadvertently like you suggest above.

Members of my own family fall into the dual-citizenship bucket, as it happens.

If you go to the USCIS website, and search for "Sec. 349. [8 U.S.C. 1481] ", you'll get the answer from the horse's mouth. Tricky stuff!

EDIT: Umm, and yeah. Best off leaving and returning on your US passport, lest you poke the sleeping bear, although I understand that it's not vital but will possibly land you in administrivial hell :/

Thank you for the clarification. I wondered if the story was quite as simple as it sounded when told to me.

On a related note, I have heard of at least one case where a green card holder after re-entering the United States using their foreign passport had the INS rule that because he did not use his green card he intended to revoke his permanent residency.

And the following sections of the law listed on the Cornell website are not enforced:

"(1) obtaining naturalization in a foreign state upon his own application or upon an application filed by a duly authorized agent, after having attained the age of eighteen years; or
(2) taking an oath or making an affirmation or other formal declaration of allegiance to a foreign state or a political subdivision thereof, after having attained the age of eighteen years; or"

... but, doing so could still affect a security clearance.

Owch! I did not know that! Thanks for the info ....