when do they call it corruption?

The law forbids government officials from lobbying their former department or agency for a year after their departure. Homeland Security officials have shrunk that timeline by a variety of methods, many not unique to that department. But the piece identifies one key rule change, "created in late 2004 at the request of senior department officials, when the first big wave of departures began." The department was divided into seven components for purposes of the lobbying laws, so now a former official can lobby DHS officials right away, as long as the lobbyees are from one of the six components the official did not work for before.