The case arose from a Chicago grand jury’s investigation into who told the two reporters, Judith Miller and Philip Shenon, about actions the government was planning to take in 2001 against two Islamic charities. The United States attorney in Chicago, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, sought the reporters’ records directly from their phone companies, and The Times filed suit to stop him.

In August, a divided three-judge panel of the federal appeals court in Manhattan ruled in favor of Mr. Fitzgerald, saying the reporters were not entitled to shield their sources. The needs of law enforcement, the majority said, outweighed any protections the reporters might have in the First Amendment or other areas of law.

These are a few of the past and present prominent officials and leaders of the American Civil Liberties Union.

1. Roger Baldwin, founder and guiding light of the ACLU for over 30 years, is now a member of the National Committee of the ACLU. Mr Roger Baldwin has a record of over 100 communist-front affiliations and citations (documented in detail, CONGRESSIONAL RECORD May 26, 1952). In an article written for Soviet Russia Today (September 1934), Roger Baldwin said: "When the power of the working class is once achieved, as it has been only in the Soviet Union, I am for maintaining it by any means whatsoever." "The class struggle is the central conflict of the world, all others are coincidental."

Entry of Roger Baldwin in the Harvard reunion book on the occasion of the 30th anniversary reunion of his class of 1905 (1935), "I seek social ownership of property, the abolition of the propertied class, and sole control of those who produced the wealth: communism is the goal."

2. Dr. Harry Ward, first chairman of the ACLU. Dr. Harry Ward has a record of over 200 Communist front affiliations and citations listed by the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities (HCUA). Dr. Harry Ward was chairman of one of the largest Communist fronts to flourish in this country, "The American League for Peace and Democracy," which was placed on the Attorney General of the United States list of subversive organizations on June 1, 1948. Dr. Ward is the author of "Soviet Democracy" and "Soviet Spirit," two pro-Communist books which clearly show Dr. Ward's love for the Soviet system of government. The California Senate Fact Finding Committee on Un-American Activities, in their 1948 report, page 246, said: "The Communist affiliation of Dr. Harry F. Ward is indicative of the Communist sympaties of the members and sponsors of the "Friends of the Soviet Union."

3. Abraham L. Wirin, chief counsel for the Southern California Chapter of the ACLU, sometimes referred to as "Mr. ACLU."

In 1934 A. L. Wirin formed a law partnership with Leo Gllagher and Grover Johnson (reference: Daily Peoples World, Mar. 5, 1934, official publication of the Communist Party on the west coast). Mr Leo Gallagher ran for State office on the Communist Party ticket in 1936 and Grover Johnson, when asked by a governmental investigating agency if he had ever been a member of the Communist Party, refused to answer the question on the grounds that he might incriminate himself.

In 1954, A. L. Wirin was a candidate for the executive board of National Lawyers Guild (reference: Los Angeles Daily Journal, Jan 13, 1954). The National Lawyers Guild has been cited as a Communist Front organization by the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA) September 21, 1950. (Four years before, Mr. Wirin was a candidate for the executive board.)

Rev. A. A. Heist, executive director of the Southern California Chapter of the ACLU in 1952, and Dr. Monroe's predecessor. Rev. A. A. Heist was a signer of the statement to the President of the United States, defending the Communist Party (reference: Daily Worker Mar 5, 1941). In 1952, the Reverend Heist resigned his position in the ACLU to become director of a new organization which he founded, called the Citizens' Committee to Preserve American Freedoms (CCPAF). This organization is run by its executive secretary, Mr. Frank Wilkinson, an identified Communist. At a meeting of the district council of the southern California district of the Communist Party, United States of America, Dorothy Healy, well-known Communist and chairman of the district council, said, "The party preferred public protest meetings against the HCUA to be held by the Citizens Committee To Preserve American Freedoms rather than under party auspices because Communists could attend without danger of being exposed as party members." (Reference HCUA, H. Rept. 259, Apr 3, 1950, "Report on the Southern California District of the Communist Party". The Citizens Committee To Preserve American Freedoms was cited as being a Communist front organization by the HCUA on April 3, 1959.

The Reverend Heist stated in a speech to an audience of high school and junior college students in Pasadena that "the Constitution of the United States is outmoded, outdated, and impotent." (One of the stated goals of the ACLU is to preserve the Constitution.)

In 1948, the Reverend Heist protested the withdrawal of the use of their hall by Occidental College to an identified Communist poet, Langston Hughes, who was to speak on a poem of his entitled, "Goodbye, Christ," which called for "Christ, Jesus, Lord God Jehovah" to "beat it" and "make way for a new guy named Marx, Communist Lenin, Peasant Stalin, and worker me." (Reference: Hollywood Citizen News, February 26, 1948.) This would not be a strange protest from an atheistic Communist, but when it comes from a Methodist minister?