A TSA agent almost didn't let passenger through because she had a Washington, D.C. identification card and the agent didn't know where DC was or that and ID card from there is legitimate.
Ashley Brandt was traveling home from the Grand Canyon after a trip with her boyfriend a few weeks ago when a Transportation Security Administration agent in Phoenix looked at her driver's license from "District of Columbia" and said they couldn't accept it, the Washington Post reports.
"I don't know if we can accept these. Do you have a US passport?" the agent said, according to Brandt . Brandt didn't have her passport, so the TSA agent called over their manager, which made Brandt very uneasy. "I started thinking, 'Oh my gosh, I have to get home. Am I going to get home?' "
The supervisor eventually let Brandt move on, but it seems that the TSA agent may need to brush up on their geography.
"DC is obviously not a state, but I didn't ever imagine it would be a problem - I mean, the whole population of DC has to use these," Brandt said. "She didn't seem to know that it was basically the same as a state ID," she added.
Brandt was able to make it through security and flew home without any other problems, but her boyfriend, who had planned the Grand Canyon trip as a birthday present, took to Twitter to talk about the ordeal.
"Holy. [Expletive]. TSA @ PHX asked for gf's passport because her valid DC license deemed invalid b/c 'DC not a state,' " he tweeted. The tweet went viral and many others shared surprisingly similar stories.
When questioned, a TSA spokeswoman only said, "A valid Washington, DC, driver's license is an acceptable form of identification at all TSA checkpoints."
Brandt did not file a complaint about the incident but she is still shocked over the ordeal. "The whole thing was kind of ridiculous and strange," Brandt said. "Apparently in Arizona, they're not sure we're all right."
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
