Is Attorney General John Ashcroft stepping over the line? In a memo to the 93 U.S. Attorneys in the country, Guy A. Lewis, director of the executive office for United States Attorneys, urges them to lobby Congress to keep funding "sneak and peek" searches.

The federal Anti-Lobbying Act generally prohibits government employees from lobbying for or against legislation. Ashcroft's spokesman says the 93 U.S. Attorneys are exempt because they are political appointees.

In addition to meeting with local House members, the memo instructs the 93 chief federal prosecutors to hold community meetings to press the virtues of the Patriot Act, the anti-terrorism legislation that passed overwhelmingly weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and gave the government significant new powers to conduct searches and surveillance in terrorism investigations.

Congressman John Conyers (D-Mi) has already fired off a letter to Ashcroft:

Representative John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, told Mr. Ashcroft in a letter that he should either "desist from further speaking engagements" or explain why they do not violate restrictions on political activities by government officials.

Mr. Conyers said that the speeches in defense of the USA Patriot Act, as the antiterrorism law is known, appeared to conflict with Congressional restrictions preventing the use of Justice Department money for "publicity or propaganda purposes not authorized by Congress." He said they might also violate the Anti-Lobbying Act and its restrictions on grass-roots lobbying on legislative matters.