Times asks Supreme Court to bar prosecutor

WASHINGTON, Nov. 25 (UPI) -- The New York Times has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to bar a federal prosecutor from reviewing phone records of two of its reporters.

The records would let the government learn the identities of many of the reporters' confidential sources, lawyers for the Times said.

U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald sought the reporters' records in connection with a grand jury investigation into who told the reporters, Judith Miller and Philip Shenon, about actions the government planned to take against two Islamic charities in 2001.

A divided three-judge panel of the federal appeals court in New York ruled in favor of Fitzgerald in August. The court said the reporters were not entitled to shield their sources because the needs of law enforcement outweighed any First Amendment protections the reporters might have.