Within 48 hours of the attacks on the World Trade Center, airport security companies formed their own trade organization, the Aviation Security Association, retained a former transportation department official to lobby for them, and hired international PR giant Burson-Marsteller. According to the Holmes Report, in the past month, B-M has designed a website for the association, written position papers that were distributed to Capitol Hill, sponsored meetings with congressional staffers, and set up editorial board meetings.

"Public relations companies wrote all those news releases that helped inflate the Internet bubble, so perhaps it's only fitting that they feel the effects of its collapse," observes CNET News.com. PR firms like Edelman are laying off staff and closing offices as money dries up from collapsing dot.coms.

Big tobacco continues to pour money into lobbying Congress according to a story published in the Winston-Salem Journal. "Each day that Congress meets, the nation's four largest cigarette manufacturers spend more than $100,000 pushing their agenda on Capitol Hill." Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. and Lorillard Tobacco Co. spent $44.2 million lobbying Congress in two and a half years ending June 30, according to reports filed by corporations and lobbying firms with the U.S. House and Senate.