FactCheck recompresses, removes EXIF data from Obama birth certificate photos

Back on August 21, FactCheck released photos apparently showing Barack Obama's birth certificate (actually his "Certification of Live Birth" or "COLB"). At the time, I noted that the EXIF information (added by the camera) showed that the pictures had been shot months before and I mentioned such possibilities as them not setting up their camera correctly, a bad battery, and the like.

Now, FactCheck has recompressed those images and removed the EXIF information in so doing. However, their sidebar linking to the images still contains the old file sizes (factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html).

The only image I downloaded was birth_certificate_3.jpg, and I've included links to the version retrieved on August 21 and a version retrieved today below. I'm not a Gimp expert by any means, but a simple subtraction seemed to show that the images were the same other than the missing EXIF and the different file sizes. There's a discussion of this here, and if anyone else notices any other differences leave a comment.

August 21 (1.22MB)
Today (209kb)

UPDATE: To be precise, it's a "Certification of Live Birth", not a "Certificate of Live Birth".

Politics · Tue, 09/30/2008 - 07:51 · · Importance: 4