In the new issue of Newsweek, Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman provide new details of Attorney General John Ashcroft's 19 city tour that begins this week to garner public support for the Patriot Act and similar legislation he will ask Congress to pass in the near future. The first paragraph alone makes us shudder.

OVER THE NEXT three weeks, Ashcroft plans to swoop into 18 cities, give speeches, meet local officials and grant select press interviews touting department successes using the law. In a conference call and e-mails last week, sources tell NEWSWEEK, the country’s 94 U.S. attorneys were instructed to help gin up support by convening “community meetings,” writing op-ed articles in local newspapers and ensuring that uniformed cops are seated in bleachers behind the A.G. during his visits.

For more on the tour and the new powers Ashcroft is seeking, go here and here.