On The Verge

    
    
    

NEW YORK (AP) - The New York Times sued Attorney General John Ashcroft on Tuesday, seeking to block the Justice Department from obtaining records of telephone calls between two veteran journalists and their confidential sources.

The lawsuit said the Justice Department was "on the verge" of getting records as part of a probe aimed at learning the identity of government employees who may have provided information to the newspaper. It asked a judge to intervene.

The paper said the government intends to get the records, which reflect confidential communications between the journalists Philip Shenon and Judith Miller and their sources, from third parties unlikely to be interested in challenging its authority.

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George Freeman, a lawyer for the Times, said most of the sources had no connection to the government's probe.

"We are very troubled at this brazen intrusion into our relationship with our sources, which is unconstitutional and endangers our free press," he said.
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U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, a Chicago special prosecutor appointed to investigate government leaks, asked the Times in August 2002 and again in July to produce Shenon and Miller for interviews and to produce records of their calls, the lawsuit said.

He threatened to obtain telephone records from third parties if the Times did not cooperate, the suit said. In a letter dated Friday, Deputy Attorney General James Comey said the Justice Department had decided it was "now obliged to proceed" to obtain the records, the lawsuit said.

» N.Y. Times Sues Ashcroft in Leak Probe