It's not if they make it illegal (in public places).

The moment it was bailed out by the government it stopped being a true private company. A true private company would have been left to fail, and all the staff would have lost their jobs (and only some of them would presumably have been able to find new ones in the immediate aftermath).

"It's not if they make it illegal (in public places)."

Nice try on deflecting. Fact of the matter is they are going beyond public places and going into private buesnesses and banning smoking in those too. Its also not illegal to smoke so the gov is infact invading private places

No they didn't.  In most cases the government only provided a loan or bought shares int he company neither of which stops the company from being a private company.  While shareholders do have some say in how a company functions there are limits on shareholders power and the same limits should apply to the shares owned by the government. 

The government had their oppotunity to set up restrictions on any money that they gave out to companies and they dropped the ball, they have no right to retroactively apply restrictions on what that money can be applied to.  That'd be like you loaning me $100 that you thought I was going to use to help pay my mortgage one month and I turn around and spend it on some playstation game.  Sure you can be as pissed as you want but if you didn't tell me ahead of time what that money was for and had me sign some legally binding agreement to that end then the money simply became mine to do with as I see fit.  But I bet you would then think twice about ever loaning me any money in the future, and the same should go for AIG.

Businesses are public places (typically) - public as in it might be accessbale to the general public as customers or employees.

The government gave the companies money to survive. Without that money the companies would have gone under. Hence that company has been bailed out and is no longer a true private company - they have become a state sponsered/supported one.

We're hearing that a lot of people think the stimulus package is needed but it's too much money and too much waste.  And there is no confidence in the government's ability to manage it.  A recent survey on MinionMonitor.com, a site dedicated to people who don't make six figures, showed that 80% of Minions categorize Congress as either "failing miserably" or "dumb and dumber", and the daily news headlines aren't doing much to change that.    

This is being covered in another thread so I won't belabor the point too much other than to say that open to the public is NOT the same as a public place like a park.  If it is a business it is owned by someone who should be allowed to set the rules over what goes on inside as long as it is lawful.  Banning smoking in privately owned businesses is overstepping the governments bounds.

This doesn't mean that they ceased to be a private company, they are merely a private company that has been given government money much like if you or I had given them money the government just has the ability to deficit spend.  The government's chance to put restrictions on the money was before the money was handed out, not well after the fact.