Woz’s Laser Safety Officer Badge!


You may not know it, but years ago Steve Wozniak was interrogated by the Secret Service for using $2 bills in Vegas… if not, you can read that hilarious account here.
After using some of his $2 bills at a casino, Woz is interogated by a Secret Service agent and was read his Miranda Rights. The Secret Service Agent then asks for some ID…
He asked me for some picture ID. I have some fake photo ID’s that a friend made for me years before, when we could make realistic photo ID’s from our computers. Almost nobody else could do this because printers weren’t good enough. But I had an expensive early generation dye sublimation printer and made some fake ID’s for fun. I had one favorite fake ID that I’d used for almost every airplane flight, domestic and international, that I’d taken for many years. It says “Laser Safety Officer” and has a photo of me with an eyepatch. It also says “Department of Defiance” in an arc, in a font that looks like “Department of Defense” to the casual glance.
As I opened my wallet, I considered whether I should risk using this fake ID on the Secret Service. It probably amounted to a real crime. I had my driver’s license as well. But you only live once and only a few of us even get a chance like this once in our lives. So I handed him the fake ID. He noted and returned it. The Secret Service took an ID that said “Laser Safety Officer” with a photo of myself wearing an eyepatch.

Check out Woz’s full story here. 😀