Opinion: New rap ‘Don’t Touch My Junk’ almost as funny as comparing body scanners to public colonoscopies
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Civil liberties activist Michael Adams strikes again with another rap. This time it’s the snappy “Don’t Touch My Junk†based on John Tyner’s refusal to be scanned or searched last week at San Diego International Airport. Lyrics include such rhymes as “Lordy Lordy I declare / Big Brother’s in my underwear.â€
Several readers wrote in with similar sentiments in response to The Times’ editorial Wednesday, Shut up and be scanned. Comments have called the TSA’s new approach “immoral,†“expensive,†“not even effective,†“unsafe and untested†and “illegal.†One reader went so far as to compare the functionality of the new body scanners to “public colonoscopies.â€
A few readers offered up some alternatives to TSA’s new scan-or-search methods.
Pay attention to who, not what
If 99% of the people have to give up their freedom and dignity to control the 1% who threaten it, the 1% have achieved their goals. The vast majority of the people who fly don’t need the level of scrutiny they’re currently being subjected to. But every case I can think of in which some nut tried to do something terrible, it turned out the warning signs were already there. We shouldn’t be harassing everyone or profiling certain groups. We should be screening out the scary 1% who say crazy things and do crazy things, often publicly, long before they get on a plane and make national headlines. We need to pay less attention to WHAT gets on the plane and more to WHO gets on the plane.
-- steve.elbrecht at 7:23 AM November 19, 2010
Fly naked
Everyone should fly naked, and no luggage should be allowed. All luggage and parcels would go on a separate aircraft. Maybe then we’d be safe :)
-- scoogy at 10:15 AM November 19, 2010
Bring in the dogs
If each terminal had two bomb sniffing dogs trained to find PCTN and other contraband, then that would save each terminal roughly $200,000 per machine.
-- marijuasher at 6:05 AM November 18, 2010
For some readers, though, issues of privacy trumped radiation. Commenter caliman1717, for instance, suggested we move to China “if [we] like [our] freedoms being trampled on.â€
No surprise that we were more inclined to agree with Zardoz1:
I agree with the article: shut up and be scanned.Then when it’s over, you can turn around and report to the entire world via Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, how your sacred right to privacy has been trampled upon. Along with your name, picture, birth date, hometown, occupation, religion, political affiliation, the names and photographs of all of your closest friends and relatives, and exactly where you are and what you are doing...Or better yet, stay home and don’t fly. One less angry, irrational loudmouth at the check-in line does us all a favor.
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-- Alexandra Le Tellier
