Ah, the airport, where modern folk heroes are made. The airport, where that inspired flight attendant did what everyone who's ever been in the spam-in-a-can crush of a flying aluminum tube - where we collectively pretend that a clutch of peanuts is a meal and a seat cushion is a "flotation device" - has always dreamed of doing: pull the lever, blow the door, explode the chute, grab a beer, slide to the tarmac and walk through the gates to the sanity that lies beyond. Not since Rick and Louis disappeared into the Casablanca fog headed for the Free French garrison in Brazzaville has a stroll on the tarmac thrilled so many. 
 
 Who cares that the crazed steward got arrested, pleaded guilty to sundry charges, and probably was a rude, unpleasant SOB to begin with? Bonnie and Clyde were psychopaths, yet what child of the '60s did not fall in love with Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty? 
 
 And now three months later, the newest airport hero arrives. His genius was not innovation in getting out, but deconstructing the entire process of getting in. John Tyner, cleverly armed with an iPhone to give YouTube immortality to the encounter, took exception to the TSA guard about to give him the benefit of Homeland Security's newest brainstorm - the upgraded, full-palm, up the groin, all-body pat-down. In a stroke, the young man ascended to myth, or at least the next edition of Bartlett's, warning the agent not to "touch my junk." 
 
 Not quite the 18th-century elegance of "Don't Tread on Me," but the age of Twitter has a different cadence from the age of the musket. What the modern battle cry lacks in archaic charm, it makes up for in full-body syllabic punch. 
 
 Don't touch my junk is the anthem of the modern man, the Tea Party patriot, the late-life libertarian, the midterm election voter. Don't touch my junk, Obamacare - get out of my doctor's examining room, I'm wearing a paper-thin gown slit down the back. Don't touch my junk, Google - Street View is cool, but get off my street. Don't touch my junk, you airport security goon - my package belongs to no one but me, and do you really think I'm a Nigerian nut job preparing for my 72-virgin orgy by blowing my johnson to kingdom come? 
 
 In "Up in the Air," that ironic take on the cramped freneticism of airport life, George Clooney explains why he always follows Asians in the security line: 
 
 "They pack light, travel efficiently, and they got a thing for slip-on shoes, God love 'em." 
 
 "That's racist!" 
 
 "I'm like my mother. I stereotype. It's faster." 
 
 That riff is a crowd-pleaser because everyone knows that the entire apparatus of the security line is a national homage to political correctness. Nowhere do more people meekly acquiesce to more useless inconvenience and needless indignity for less purpose. Wizened seniors strain to untie their shoes; beltless salesmen struggle comically to hold up their pants; 3-year-olds scream while being searched insanely for explosives - when everyone, everyone, knows that none of these people is a threat to anyone. 
 
 The ultimate idiocy is the full-body screening of the pilot. The pilot doesn't need a bomb or box cutter to bring down a plane. All he has to do is drive it into the water, like the EgyptAir pilot who crashed his plane off Nantucket while intoning "I rely on God," killing all on board. 
 
 But we must not bring that up. We pretend that we go through this nonsense as a small price paid to ensure the safety of air travel. Rubbish. This has nothing to do with safety - 95 percent of these inspections, searches, shoe removals and pat-downs are ridiculously unnecessary. The only reason we continue to do this is that people are too cowed to even question the absurd taboo against profiling - when the profile of the airline attacker is narrow, concrete, uniquely definable and universally known. So instead of seeking out terrorists, we seek out tubes of gel in stroller pouches. 
 
 The junk man's revolt marks the point at which a docile public declares that it will tolerate only so much idiocy. Metal detector? Back-of-the-hand pat? Okay. We will swallow hard and pretend airline attackers are randomly distributed in the population. 
 
 But now you insist on a full-body scan, a fairly accurate representation of my naked image to be viewed by a total stranger? Or alternatively, the full-body pat-down, which, as the junk man correctly noted, would be sexual assault if performed by anyone else? 
 
 This time you have gone too far, Big Bro'. The sleeping giant awakes. Take my shoes, remove my belt, waste my time and try my patience. But don't touch my junk. 
 
 letters@charleskrauthammer.com ||||| Revealing full-body scans and genital-touching pat-downs are poised to become a regular fixture of airline travel in the U.S., and people are hopping mad about it.There have been accusations on both sides of fear mongering, insider profiting scandals and abuse Some of the effects of this two month-old change in the way airline passengers are screened are already being felt: CBS News travel editor Peter Greenberg warns that the most immediate effect of these new security procedures will be longer lines and even travel delays, perhaps in no small part because even airline pilots have come out vehemently against them.• There are several reports, some disputed , of dust-ups with Transportation and Security Administration agents not really offering promised alternatives to the scans.• Some reports claim TSA agents are simply booting passengers and pilots from airports for refusing to take part, something the TSA notes is its right to do after a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling.A surprising effect of the scans may eventually be a decline in air travel, according to an online Reuters poll . Reuters' readers were asked whether or not they would change their travel plans to avoid the invasive scans and pat-downs, and a whopping 96 percent (65,708 of 68,513) have thus far said yes.Those numbers could be skewed because one of the plethora of online opponents to the new scanning procedures may have asked readers to go to the site and vote.In contrast, a new CBS News Poll released Monday found 81 percent of Americans think airports should use these new machines -- including a majority of both men and women, Americans of all age groups, and Democrats, Republicans, and independents alike. Fifteen percent said airports should not use them.For her part, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says in a USA Today opinion piece that body scanners used at many airports are safe and the images viewed in private. 
 
 Health Blog: Should John Tyner Should Worry about More Than His Junk?
– The "if-you-touch-my-junk" guy is gaining traction as the poster boy of the anti-body-scan movement. Charles Krauthammer takes up his cause today, declaring that "don't touch my junk" is, in fact, "the anthem of the modern man, the Tea Party patriot, the late-life libertarian, the midterm election voter." It applies to everything from Obamacare to Google Street View. Maybe not as elegant as Don't Tread on Me, but perfect in the "age of Twitter," he writes in the Washington Post. More to the point, it highlights the "idiocy" of the TSA strategy. Until we get over this "absurd taboo against profiling"—especially "when the profile of the airline attacker is narrow, concrete, uniquely definable and universally known"—we're all going to suffer. That includes pilots, who wouldn't exactly need a box cutter to take down a plane, he points out. Robert Poole in the Daily Beast also cites the touch-my-junk guy (real name John Tyner) in calling for an end to the scanner "nonsense." His solution involves "evidence-based profiling" that divides travelers into high, medium, and low risks. Click here for details on that.