This may get ugly. The Department of Justice is charging that a New York Times reporter, Philip Shenon, warned a Islamic charity group under investigation for funding terrorist-related activity of an impending raid on its offices. To prove the allegation, DOJ is seeking telephone and email records of reporters Philip Shenon and Judith Miller for the 20 days after 9/11.

U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald of Chicago charged in court papers that Shenon blew the cover on the Dec. 14, 2001, raid of the Global Relief Foundation — the first charges of their kind under broad new investigatory powers given to the feds under the Patriot Act. "It has been conclusively established that Global Relief Foundation learned of the search from reporter Philip Shenon of The New York Times," Fitzgerald said in an Aug. 7, 2002, letter to the Times' legal department.

The Times denies the allegation and is mightily resisting the subpoena. The paper sued in federal court yesterday to stop DOJ from getting access to the records saying the turnover would reveal the identity of confidential sources.

The lawsuit said the scope of the government's demand for telephone records meant that the records would expose the identities of dozens of confidential sources used by the reporters for an array of articles about Sept. 11, the government's handling of continued threats from al-Qaida and the war in Iraq.