Hawaii Considers Bill to Ignore Repeated Requests for Obama's Birth Certificate

The small but vocal group of conspiracists who question whether Barack Obama was born in the United States continues to pepper the state of Hawaii with requests for the president's birth certificate -- and some state officials are fed up. Now a bill has been introduced in the state House to allow government workers to ignore the repeated demands of the Obama skeptics known as birthers, The Associated Press reported.

Hawaii officials have repeatedly issued statements that Obama was born in the state and that the Health Department holds a copy of his original birth certificate. A copy of the document has been made available on the Internet.

That hasn't stopped some Obama opponents from continually submitting requests for the certificate, at a rate of up to 20 a week. They believe Obama is not native-born and therefore is ineligible to be president.

Supporters of the bill, introduced by state Sen. Will Espero, a Democrat, say that responding to the "vexatious requesters" wastes time, resources and money.

"They're spurred on by these 'birther' blogs who direct them to bombard the Health Department even though they have no legitimate right to the information," department spokeswoman Janice Okubo told USA Today. "They've been misled to believe that the state of Hawaii gives out birth information to anyone who requests it, but really our law protects birth information. We're entrusted with protecting people's vital records. To open them up would mean opening them up to identity theft and other types of concerns."

Nobody at a state House Judiciary Committee hearing on the bill questioned whether the president was born in Hawaii, but some criticized the idea of legislating against government openness.

"When people want to get more information, the way to fuel that fire is to say, 'We're now going to draw down a veil of secrecy,' " said state Rep. Cynthia Thielen, a Republican.

The committee was expected to schedule a vote on the bill.

Read the bill here.