[danso]

Ask someone whose loved ones have been fatally poisoned due to government negligence in rubber-stamping an environmental impact report and I think they'd offer a feisty debate.

(Or anyone at the receiving end of military action, for that matter)

The point is that drawing a line between lobbying that affects prisons (nevermind a distinction between federal, local, and other institutions of incarceration) and lobbying that affects anything else can be a largely arbitrary affair.

[downandout]

I have no idea what happened to your loved ones or if they have been "fatally poisoned," and if so, who was responsible for that. What I do know, based on what you said, is that the government didn't forcibly lock them in a box for X years at gunpoint. They apparently failed to publish some kind of report you wanted them to publish. Not exactly the same thing.

Criminal laws are by far the most invasive laws we have on the books, and because of that they deserve special protections against those that would seek to exploit them.