Steve Hoffacker's Sales Quips

Just how long are we as a country expected to tolerate and pay for the disgraceful actions of the TSA?

Last week they issued an apology - by letter rather than in-person or by phone - for a serious mistake they had made involving two elderly South Florida women at JFK Airport who had been improperly treated at the end of last year. Clearly these women were a serious threat to national security or they would not have been treated as they were. There are conflicting accounts, but something improper happened - and an apology ensued.

Also last week, they let a woman inadvertently carrying a handgun in her purse, collect her purse from the screening area and go on her way at DFW Airport. She boarded her plane and made it all the way to the runway before they caught up with her 90 minutes later. She was no threat either, but the TSA's incompetency was quite evident.

Today, in Nashville, they detained Sen. Rand Paul, from neighboring Kentucky, after he went through the radiation chamber because they also wanted to pat him down. He refused. Now, clearly the Senator was a serious security risk.

TSA has proven that their plan isn't working. Time for a new one that is far less costly and much more friendly.

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For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, visit my website or go to my other blog "Steve Hoffacker's Home Sales Insights" for additional sales tips, insights, and commentary. Listen to my free podcast messages at "Steve Hoffacker's Happenings."

Steve Hoffacker - Sales Trainer, Author of Sales Books, Commercial Real Estate Broker, Marketing Consultant, Sales Coach, Blogger, Photographer, Motivator, Podcaster, and Teacher. - for Realtors, Real Estate Sales Professionals, Home Builders, New Home Salespeople, Entrepreneurs, Small Business Owners, and Independent Sales Representatives.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2012. All Rights Reserved.

TSA strikes again. Why do we continue to fund this agnecy?

In the latest skirmish between TSA and the public, an agent at Las Vegas' McCarren International Airpport must have been ready for his coffee break and needed a nice cupcake for a snack. It seems that he designated the frosting on a cupcake a female passenger was holding in a glass Mason jar (a present to her) as a prohibited gel-like substance and confiscated the cupcake and its jar.

Hope he enjoyed it.

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For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, visit my website or go to my other blog "Steve Hoffacker's Home Sales Insights" for additional sales tips, insights, and commentary. Listen to my free podcast messages at "Steve Hoffacker's Happenings."

Steve Hoffacker - Sales Trainer, Author of Sales Books, Commercial Real Estate Broker, Marketing Consultant, Sales Coach, Blogger, Photographer, Motivator, Podcaster, and Teacher. - for Realtors, Real Estate Sales Professionals, Home Builders, New Home Salespeople, Entrepreneurs, Small Business Owners, and Independent Sales Representatives.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2011. All Rights Reserved.

The DC Court of Appeals sides with TSA but gets the issue wrong. The TSA's virtual strip search was challenged on constitutional grounds of violating the 4th Amendment's prohibition of unreasonable searches. I concur. It is a clear violation.

For this not to be a violation, the TSA would have to have a warrant or reasonably suspect that we were carrying a prohibited substance or item.

The court found that the TSA should have elicited public opinion first - in which case these practices never would have been deployed and we would have saved millions of dollars.

The court continued that people have a choice - use the virtual strip search or get fondled by a TSA stranger. Some choice. Either way, there is a presumption of guilt without foundation.

If you want to parade us through metal detectors, OK. Nothing else. They are ineffective and a total violation of our privacy.

The TSA is wrong, The Court of Appeals is wrong.

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For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, visit my website stevehoffacker.com, or go to my other bloghomesalesinsights.com for additional sales tips, insights, and commentary. Listen to my free podcast messages at Steve Hoffacker's Happenings.

Steve Hoffacker - Consultant, Coach, Author, Blogger, Photographer, Motivator, Teacher, & Strategist - for Realtors, Real Estate Sales Professionals, Home Builders, New Home Salespeople, Entrepreneurs, Small Business Owners, and Independent Sales Representatives.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2011. All Rights Reserved.

First let me say that there are some very nice people who work for the TSA that understand the stress of flying and complying with all of the rules. They do their best to share a smile or a friendly exchange. Then there are the rest who seem to enjoy their power.

I have written before about how the TSA and the Homeland Security - supposedly created to protect us - seem more intent on entrenching themselves and enjoying their power. A metal detector that we walk through is fine - without removing shoes, belts, sweaters, jackets, hats, watches, etc. A scanner for our carry-ons without separating the liquids or removing our computers is OK. That's it. Minimal time, minimal inconvenience, full protection, No virtual peep shows, no radiation, no patdowns. And with a handful of employees instead of a regiment.

Not long ago, airports were given the option of hiring their own security screeners. TSA soon stopped that practice when they realized they had given up too much authority.

Now, they have been given the authority to unionize. 50,000 of them. Can you imagine the collective bargaining talks and what they will ask for and get? Can you picture a nationwide strike by the TSA that will cripple the airports?

Who in Congress saw this coming and why was it allowed to happen?

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For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, visit my website stevehoffacker.com, or go to my other blog homesalesinsights.com for additional sales tips, insights, and commentary. Listen to my free podcast messages at Steve Hoffacker's Happenings.

Steve Hoffacker - Consultant, Coach, Author, Blogger, Photographer, Motivator, Teacher, & Strategist - for Realtors, Real Estate Sales Professionals, Home Builders, New Home Salespeople, Entrepreneurs, Small Business Owners, and Independent Sales Representatives.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2011. All Rights Reserved.

Did you hear about the lady at DFW Airport in Dallas who was scanned by the TSA and determined to be carrying something they wanted a closer look at? Well when they began to look for her she was gone. She went on her merry way and TSA never found her.

They put out a total security alert - short of closing the airport - to locate the woman but never did.

Must not have been that serious of a threat - and still the scanners have not caught anything potentially dangerous.

Good thing TSA is so good at what they do. What's that? It only takes the terrorists being right - or lucky - once?

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For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, visit my website stevehoffacker.com, or go to my other blog homesalesinsights.com for additional sales tips, insights, and commentary. Listen to my free podcast messages at Steve Hoffacker's Happenings.

Steve Hoffacker - Consultant, Coach, Author, Blogger, Photographer, Motivator, Teacher, & Strategist - for Realtors, Real Estate Sales Professionals, Home Builders, New Home Salespeople, Entrepreneurs, Small Business Owners, and Independent Sales Representatives.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2010. All Rights Reserved.

The TSA, FAA, or Homeland Security - or all three are having a grand time wasting our money and irritating the traveling public.

They plan to have a total of 1,000 airports with the virtual porn machines ("scanners") in place a year from now - representing half of the nation's 2,000 airports with secuirty checkpoints.

They erroneously claim that these are necessary to prevent more underwear bombing attacks - while (1) the original perpetrator boarded a plane outside of the US and would not have been spotted anyway and (2) no such incidents have been spotted since the inception of the egregious devices.

Just more taxpayer moeny being wasted to give TSA a great sense of authority and control.

Send them back for a refund - from all 1,000 airports and cancel the orders on those yet to be delivered. We changed our minds.

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For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, visit my website stevehoffacker.com, or go to my other blog homesalesinsights.com for additional sales tips, insights, and commentary. Listen to my free podcast messages at Steve Hoffacker's Happenings.

Steve Hoffacker - Consultant, Coach, Author, Blogger, Photographer, Motivator, Teacher, & Strategist - for Realtors, Real Estate Sales Professionals, Home Builders, New Home Salespeople, Entrepreneurs, Small Business Owners, and Independent Sales Representatives.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2010. All Rights Reserved.

Supposedly the TSA was created to thwart people getting on airplanes that might threaten the safety and security of the other passengers. Except for a a few instances of carelessness where people forgot they had packed a handgun or other taboo item, the TSA has not caught anything that would rise to the level of a major security concern - unless they are keeping their success mum. I doubt that.

I think that the TSA sees themself as some type of super agency with absolute power to annoy people, trample on their constitutional rights, and prevent people from boarding airplanes - all at their discretion. Common sense has no place in the TSA. That's why the very young and the very old are subjected to virtual strip searches or invasive patdowns as if they are serious threats.

As I reported on Thursday in "A Sari State Of Affairs" about the TSA singling out India's Ambassador to the US, Meera Shankar, for a patdown in Jackson, Mississippi, it seemed on first read that this couldn't be true. Ah, but it is.

Hilliary Clinton has apologized and says she wants to determine what happened and how to avoid such incidents in the future. It doesn't take an investigation to determine that TSA used no common sense and that the way to avoid this in the future is to disband the TSA. So the TSA trumps the State Department?

Janet Napolitano stands behind her troops giving them kudos. She says it was appropriate action and they followed procedures. What more can I say?

TSA is a national embarrassment that cannot stop anything but the sloppiest of would-be terrorists. And for that, the entire air-traveling public is subjected to their high-handed and insensitive authority.

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For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, visit my website stevehoffacker.com, or go to my other blog homesalesinsights.com for additional sales tips, insights, and commentary. Listen to my free podcast messages at Steve Hoffacker's Happenings.

Steve Hoffacker - Consultant, Coach, Author, Blogger, Photographer, Motivator, Teacher, & Strategist - for Realtors, Real Estate Sales Professionals, Home Builders, New Home Salespeople, Entrepreneurs, Small Business Owners, and Independent Sales Representatives.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2010. All Rights Reserved.

TSA is at it again. It's not enough that they think that children and the elderly are potential terrorists who must be subjected to arrest-style patdowns. Now they have stepped into the diplomatic arena and lost another round of esteem.

It seems that India's Ambassor to the US, Meera Shankar, had just finished a speech at Mississippi State University in Jackson recently and was on her way back to Washington when she was pulled out of the security line and forced to submit to a patdown - presumably because of her native dress.

Will someone pull the plug on this TSA fiasco? What was George Bush thinking when he allowed this to happen?  It serves no purpose and spends obscene amounts of money while angering and delaying passengers.

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For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, visit my website stevehoffacker.com, or go to my other blog homesalesinsights.com for additional sales tips, insights, and commentary. Listen to my free podcast messages at Steve Hoffacker's Happenings.

Steve Hoffacker - Consultant, Coach, Author, Blogger, Photographer, Motivator, Teacher, & Strategist - for Realtors, Real Estate Sales Professionals, Home Builders, New Home Salespeople, Entrepreneurs, Small Business Owners, and Independent Sales Representatives.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2010. All Rights Reserved.