TSA Employees Still Unsure About District of Columbia

LTB logo

This happened in February ("I Don't Think We Accept These," Says TSA Agent, Peering at D.C. License") and apparently it just happened again:

When {Justin Gray, WFTV News] handed the man his driver's license the agent demanded to see Gray's passport.

Gray told the agent he wasn't carrying his passport and asked why he needed it.
 
The agent said he didn't recognize the license.
 
Gray said he asked the agent if he knew what the District of Columbia is, and after a brief conversation Gray realized the man did not know.

Gray being a reporter, he reported it.

My guess is that what's happening here is that TSA agents are told that they accept "state drivers' licenses" (or passports) and that for some, showing them a license from some "district" is like asking a regular person about string theory. (Also considered an analogy to the apes confronting the monolith in 2001, but that was a group effort.) In the earlier case, it seemed at least possible that the confusion was over whether D.C. qualified as a "state" for this purpose, and to be fair it is a bit of an anomaly. (Although why wouldn't one accept an ID from the nation's capital district, of all places, if one knew what it was?) In this case, however, we are told that after some questioning the reporter concluded "the man did not know" what the "District of Columbia" is.

According to the report, Gray tweeted his experience and was contacted by a TSA spokesdrone just minutes later. (Guessing he used a hashtag that they monitor.) It reportedly confirmed that a D.C. license is indeed acceptable, and then said, "Officers are trained to identify fraudulent documents, which can potentially deter and detect individuals attempting to circumvent this layer of security." I guess that was on his list of things to say for today, because what's it got to do with this incident? The training is inadequate at some level, my friend.

The February incident happened in Phoenix, and this one was in Orlando. Also, it involved agents of two different genders, so it's not like the TSA just has the one bad apple and she got transferred. But maybe she also had gendersex-reassignment theory surgery? [Where the F did I get "surgery"?] I guess anything's possible. You know how they like to keep the terrorists guessing.