For those living in the District of Columbia, you may need to bring your passport when you travel since some members of the highly-decorated Transportation Security Administration (TSA) don’t know Washington D.C. exists.
WFTV Washington correspondent Justin Gray was flying home to Washington D.C. from Orlando, Florida when a TSA agent stopped concerning questions about his driver’s license. Gray noted that after a lengthy conversation, he realized that the agent didn’t know where – or what– the District of Colombia was. (via Mediaite):
Gray was confused: he didn’t bring his passport, because his District of Columbia driver’s license should have been sufficient. The agent insisted that he didn’t recognize it.
“At that point, I was a little confused, but then I realized what was going on,” he later told WFTV. “I said to him, ‘Do you not know what the District of Columbia is?’ After some back and forth, it became clear he didn’t.”
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Gray was eventually able to board his flight after talking to the agent’s supervisor, though he was unable to get statistics on how often Orlando International Airport has these kinds of security problems.
The TSA said in a statement that they were now teaching their agents how to identify District of Columbia IDs, which is obviously very heartening to hear.
Fr. Thomas Petri, O.P., a friend of my colleague Christine Rousselle had a similar encounter with the TSA and posted about the exchange on Facebook.
One of the commenters aptly noted that pretending to be a priest isn’t the typical cover for a fake ID.
Yeah, we’re in the best of hands when it comes to personnel ensuring our safety while we travel.