robsaw

And here I believed them when they said my Canadian DL wasn't acceptable. But perhaps the TSA's own website needs some re-work when it states:
"Adult passengers (18 and over) are required to show a valid U.S. federal or state-issued photo ID... " and then goes on to list:
"Canadian provincial driver's license or Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) card"

Geography is obviously not a TSA's strong suit.

darthbimmer

This reminds me of a tedious dialogue I witnessed at a department store checkout about 20 years ago. The man in front of me was buying something that was out of stock, so he agreed to have it shipped to his house. As the cashier entered the city and state for delivery, this sadly predictable exchange ensued:

"City and state?"
"I live in Washington, District of Columbia."
"What state is that in?"
"It's not in a state."
"Oh, we don't ship outside the U.S."
"I live in the U.S."
"So, what state is your city in?"
"It's not in a state"

The two went back and forth with "What state do you live in/It's not a state" several more times as I grew increasingly impatient for my turn to pay and go. Finally I stepped around the man in front of me and told the cashier, "The state is DC. Just type 'DC' into the computer and it will work."

Yes, the cashier was uneducated and the customer was correct, but he was being a complete idiot about it.

garykung

This sounds hilarious.

But this news makes me wonder a valid point - under what authority can DC DMV (as well as other territories) issue ID or DL? My understanding is without an act of the U.S. Congress, these places do not have the same authorities as states.

And BTW - I never relied on that list anyway. In the past when I still worked for the Fed, I have been using HSPD-12 PIV when TSA did not explicitly say it can be used for travel.

usafwso

It is CLEARLY proof of the utter failure from the public education system in the United States!!!! Any grade school child should know that D.C. is a federal district, not a state but a part of the United States. Morons like that should be terminated on the spot.

We presume that the TSA is still recruiting from pizza boxes?

AlwaysFlyStar

I have had an agent verify with his superior whether or not Hawaii was part of the USA.

Calchas

Presumably by the DC Home Rule Act 1973.

BarryDCA

First, I for one want TSA agents asking questions when they have a doubt or concern. So I applaud the agent for taking the risk of being held up for ridicule in order to do his/her job correctly.

Second, a important point here is the legal status of DC. This question of whether DC is included or not is actually a quite legitimate question. What applies to all 50 states does not necessarily apply to DC. The most obvious current example is that DC residents do not have voting representatives in Congress. (Also, next time you hear about a survey of or see data about the US with the results listed by state, see if DC is listed separately.)

Finally, DC has recently revamped our DLs. I just got a replacement a few days ago and had questions about whether it was the "real thing" since it was so different than the old one. Apparently, it has new security/anti-counterfeiting features. Perhaps this also threw the agent off. It certainly did me.

NWIFlyer

Transiting PHL from international arrivals to domestic connection a couple of years ago, I presented my British Passport to the TSA officer and answered a couple of her questions.

"Oh", she said, "You speak such good English. What language do you normally speak in your country?"

Cue every US citizen in the line doing their very best to hide away to avoid embarrassment ...

Calchas

Seems like a lot of problems could be avoided if you guys had one consistent design for driving licences across all states like we now do in the European Union.

That story is almost unbelievable.

Xyzzy

Sadly, it is nt. Friends from the UK when visiting the US have been asked how long a drive it was to get here.

ND76

The District of Columbia "Home Rule Charter", which is the "organic statute" for the activities of the DC local government, is an Act of Congress, Public Law 93-198, approved 12/24/1973:

http://www.abfa.com/ogc/hrtall.htm

Randyk47

Speaking from personal experience if you live or were born in the District of Columbia and travel enough you're going to run into all sorts of misunderstandings, some funny and some almost tragic. Some I've kind of understood like the difficult Austrian border guard who didn't understand how I could have been born in the US but not in a state but have a German surname and speak German but live in Heidelberg and have a US passport. That was a fun half German, half English 20 minute conversation. Then there was the US Immigration Officer in Dallas who asked me what state I was born in and when I answered he commenced to lecture me on the "fact" on how the District of Columbia was not a state. One of my all time favorites was a Pentagon personnel clerk processing me into a new job who mused that I was the "first white person she'd ever met born in DC". You just learn to laugh a bit, frown a bit and get on with life.

ND76

The legal status of the national capital district is discussed in Article I Section 8 Clause 17 of the federal Constitution. The original law concerning the location of the capital district was called the Residence Act of 1790. Congress adopted the current government setup for DC in 1973, the so-called "Home Rule Charter".

I don't know whether you have ever read Federalist Paper #43, but I would commend it to you as a DC resident to read, in that it discusses the rationale why a national capital district separate and apart from any state was set up in the first place. In pertinent part, Publius (James Madison) wrote:

The indispensable necessity of complete authority at the seat of government, carries its own evidence with it. It is a power exercised by every legislature of the Union, I might say of the world, by virtue of its general supremacy. Without it, not only the public authority might be insulted and its proceedings interrupted with impunity; but a dependence of the members of the general government on the State comprehending the seat of the government, for protection in the exercise of their duty, might bring on the national councils an imputation of awe or influence, equally dishonorable to the government and dissatisfactory to the other members of the Confederacy. This consideration has the more weight, as the gradual accumulation of public improvements at the stationary residence of the government would be both too great a public pledge to be left in the hands of a single State, and would create so many obstacles to a removal of the government, as still further to abridge its necessary independence. The extent of this federal district is sufficiently circumscribed to satisfy every jealousy of an opposite nature. And as it is to be appropriated to this use with the consent of the State ceding it; as the State will no doubt provide in the compact for the rights and the consent of the citizens inhabiting it; as the inhabitants will find sufficient inducements of interest to become willing parties to the cession; as they will have had their voice in the election of the government which is to exercise authority over them; as a municipal legislature for local purposes, derived from their own suffrages, will of course be allowed them; and as the authority of the legislature of the State, and of the inhabitants of the ceded part of it, to concur in the cession, will be derived from the whole people of the State in their adoption of the Constitution, every imaginable objection seems to be obviated.

The necessity of a like authority over forts, magazines, etc., established by the general government, is not less evident. The public money expended on such places, and the public property deposited in them, requires that they should be exempt from the authority of the particular State. Nor would it be proper for the places on which the security of the entire Union may depend, to be in any degree dependent on a particular member of it. All objections and scruples are here also obviated, by requiring the concurrence of the States concerned, in every such establishment.

That DC does not have voting representatives in Congress was the way that the Constitution turned out, as only states can have representatives (Art. I Section 2 Clause 1) and Senators (Art. I Section 3 Clause 1) in Congress (unless of course the Constitution is amended at some future time).

zgringo14

A DC DL is a federal ID.

PeaSouper

All of this has me thinking: Are drivers licenses issued by Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the USVI and CNMI valid for use at a TSA checkpoint? The verbiage states that they accept "state" issued photo ID.