I Barack Hussein Obama do solemnly swear.
Barack Obama has offered whistleblowers more protection than ever before.
He signed the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act in November 2012 and the National Defense
Authorization Act in January 2013.
Both of them giving whistleblowers greater protections but he's also pursued more whistleblowers
under the Espionage Act than all other presidents combined.
Edward Snowden became the 8th person to become charged under the Espionage Act for leaking
information since Obama was voted in.
Before Obama only three whistleblowers had ever been charged under that law.
Snowden fled via Hong Kong to Russia after leaking information on the NSA and other intelligence
agencies snooping programs, giving up his whole life to expose what he saw as wrongdoing.
And then there's Chelsea Manning, formerly Bradley Manning, who has been imprisoned for
35 years for leaking the war logs and diplomatic cables to Wikileaks.
Steven Jin-Woo Kim is facing trial over allegations he leaked highly classified information about
North Korea, he's pleaded not guilty.
Thomas Drake was a NSA whistleblower.
At first he tried to report waste and abuse through official channels but in the end he
was forced to leak details about the trailblazer data gathering project.
The case against him began during George Bush's second term but Obama carried through the
prosecution until 2010 when it collapsed.
Then there's Shamai Leibowitz who handed transcripts of wiretaps on the Israeli embassy in Washington
to a blogger.
He pleaded guilty and got 20 months in prison.
The reason he leaked the wiretaps was because he was worried about Israel attempting to
influence congress and the public and thinking that Israel may plan strikes on Iranian nuclear
facilities.
Jeffrey Sterling is accused of leaking information about CIA operations in Iran.
His information showed that the CIA had botched an operation leading to its entire Iranian
network being revealed and rolled up.
Next there's John Kiriakou who was a CIA officer.
He leaked details about the CIA carrying out torture, especially waterboarding.
Prosecutors denied that he qualified as a whistleblower but in a plea bargain the espionage
charges against him were dropped.
He still got 30 months in jail though.
And finally there's James Hitselberger, a navy contract linguist who is accused of releasing
classified documents about US intelligence in Bahrain.
Now the Espionage Act dates all the way back to 1917 that's during the First World War.
It was designed to stop people giving information to foreign governments and it makes absolutely
no mention of whistleblowers so it's nearly a century old and it's being used for a purpose
it was never intended for.
Critics say that the way that it's being used at the moment allows for excessive punishment
for whistleblowers.
They say the threat of a charge of aiding the enemy leads people to plead guilty to
lesser charges in plea bargains.
They also say that it lets one side throw around words like traitor, which then get
repeated by the media.
Which in Edward Snowden's case shifted the debate from the NSA programs to whether Edward
Snowden has betrayed his country.
"Obama of course, as he did with me, will attempt to paint him as a traitor."
"I say he's a traitor.
Well as far as I'm concerned he's a traitor.
When the United States was a strong country which it isn't right now, but if a person
was a traitor and you could prove that person was a traitor, that person would be given
the death penalty."
And then there's selective punishment.
What about all the people who leak information to support government policy?
You don't ever see them getting punished.
But what about the effects on journalism?
The Obama administration has repeatedly promised to be the most open ever.
It's spoken in defense of a free press.
They said he gives more interviews than any other president, has put more data online
and limited the amount of information that's classified, and sped up freedom of information
requests.
But maybe they've sped up FOI requests by denying more of them.
That's one accusation that's been leveled at them repeatedly.
They've also been accused of disregarding the first amendment to the constitution which
guarantees freedom of speech and a press free from government interference.
Now earlier this year the Associated Press was forced to hand over a huge number of phone
records as the Justice Department have tried to uncover the source of what they called
a "very, very serious leak".
AP said that their records could reveal the identity of a huge number of confidential
sources who weren't anything to do with any leaks.
In another case the government also seized FOX news reporter James Rosen's phone records,
went through his personal e-mails and more to uncover Stephen Jin-Woo Kim as his alleged
source on the North Korea story and then there's James Risen who's been subpoenaed because
so far he's refused to confirm or deny whether or not Jeffery Sterling was indeed his source
for his story on Iran.
So the Obama administration's gone after more whistleblowers under the Espionage Act than
all over President's combined and its subsequent actions have also had what's been described
as a chilling effect on the press but as we said he's actually offered more protections
to whistleblowers than ever before and how could that make sense.
Well when he signed the National Defense Authorization act it came with this little proviso - that
expanded protections would not apply if they could be interpreted in a manner that would
interfere with my authority to manage and direct executive branch officials.
So in other words if it doesn't suit the government, you don't get those protections.