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Case Claiming Obama Ineligible for Presidency Appealed to Supreme Court

Federal judge tossed case on the grounds that harm from ineligibility "too vague" for voters to have standing

By Kathleen Gilbert

WASHINGTON, D.C., October 27, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A Philadelphia lawyer who has alleged Barack Obama is ineligible for the presidency will immediately appeal his case to the Supreme Court after a district court ruled that the potential harm posed by the presidential candidate's ineligibility is "too vague" to allow voters standing to bring charges.

Philip J. Berg, esq., former deputy attorney general of PA and avowed lifelong Democrat, alleges that Sen. Obama is ineligible to run for president based on the claim that he is not a natural-born citizen of the United States.  According to the Constitution, only natural-born citizens are allowed to become President of the United States.

While the Obama campaign has dismissed the claims as false, Berg points out that Obama has failed to publicly release a birth certificate that could prove he was born in the United States.

Similar lawsuits compelling Obama to produce proof of natural-born citizenship have been filed in several states, including Hawaii, Washington, California, Florida, Georgia, New York, and Connecticut.

Judge R. Barclay Surrick dismissed Berg's case on Friday on the grounds that he, as well as all American voters, have no standing to bring charges against Sen. Obama, saying that the harm caused by Obama's alleged ineligibility is "too vague and its effects too attenuated" to be considered "an injury in fact."

"This is a question of who has standing to uphold our Constitution," said Berg in response to the decision.  "If I don't have standing, if you don't have standing, if your neighbor doesn't have standing to question the eligibility of an individual to be President of the United States - the Commander-in-Chief, the most powerful person in the world - then who does?

"So, anyone can just claim to be eligible for congress or the presidency without having their legal status, age or citizenship questioned," he complained.

"According to Judge Surrick, we the people have no right to police the eligibility requirements under the U.S. Constitution."

Suspicion and debate has swirled around the question of Obama's natural-born citizenship status in the months leading up to the election, fueled by Internet buzz and largely ignored by the mainstream media.  Despite the lack of mainstream coverage, however, Berg claims to have received more then 71 million hits on his website.

In response to the internet fueled rumors and Berg’s court case, Obama's website hosted an image of a short-form birth certificate as evidence of Obama's Hawaiian birth; however, some remain dissatisfied due in part to the absence of a discernable state seal.  The Obama campaign then allowed factcheck.org to investigate the short-form birth certificate.  Factcheck.org claimed that the certificate was valid.  

Yet Berg and other skeptics say they are still not satisfied, citing potential ties between Obama and Factcheck.org through mutual association to the Annenberg Foundation.  Additionally, some have criticized the website for allegedly favoring Obama in its purportedly non-partisan reports. According to WorldNetDaily, the original, "long-form" birth certificate has been placed under seal by Hawaii governor Linda Lingle, barring the access of media scrutiny.*

Even if Obama were born in Hawaii, Berg claims, his attendance at an Indonesian school proves that he abandoned his American citizenship at one time - which would make him a naturalized, not a natural-born, citizen.  According to Berg, Obama attended school in Indonesia at a time when the country disallowed non-Indonesian students or students of dual citizenship.

Obama continues to withhold documentation from the court, despite Berg's insistence that the case could be quickly and painlessly resolved if he were to produce a valid birth certificate.

"I am doing this for one purpose: to make sure our U.S. Constitution, the most important document in our country, is followed," said Berg.  He compared Obama's response to the accusations to McCain's, when the Republican presidential candidate's citizenship was at one point called into question.

"What did he [McCain] do? He immediately released his birth certificate," said Berg.

Referring to Obama's response to similar litigation, Berg said, "He's hiding behind legalisms, while although proper, it's a disgrace because I think the people of the United States deserve to know where you were born."

To see Philip Berg's website: http://www.obamacrimes.com

*Since publishing this article, LSN has been informed that all birth certificates are protected by strict confidentiality requirements and may only be released to individuals who have a tangible relationship to the person, under Hawaii state law.

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