TSA Employees Will Be Trained to Recognize DC Driver’s Licenses

In the wake of numerous instances of DC residents not being able to fly home because airport security personnel did not understand that a driver’s license issued by the District counts as valid identification, the Transportation Security Agency will start training its employees to recognize that, in fact, a DC license is as good as any state’s. Licenses issued by the city will be part of TSA agents’ daily shift briefings, according to a press release from Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton’s office, which is taking credit for the change.

Norton met again with top TSA officials last week, as she had done several times already in 2014 following reports of District residents getting held up at airports around the country, but it appears the most recent sit-down finally produced results.

Beside the daily briefings, TSA employees who check travel documents—the blue-shirted ranks who sift you through security gates—will also go through a four-hour training session in September that will feature a special emphasis on driver’s licenses, especially those issued by DC’s Department of Motor Vehicles.

“Residents are sensitive about invidious treatment, considering what Congress throws at them,” Norton says in the press release. “I appreciate the remedial actions led by top officials at the TSA.”

Find Benjamin Freed on Twitter at @brfreed.

Benjamin Freed

Staff Writer

Benjamin Freed joined Washingtonian in August 2013 and covers politics, business, and media. He was previously the editor of DCist and has also written for Washington City Paper, the New York Times, the New Republic, Slate, and BuzzFeed. He lives in Adams Morgan.