This is an excellent task for the lolbrarian. Ahh, research.

Step 1: Determine what might have the best chance of being flagged as "suspicious." This turns out to be rather difficult.
The American Library Association has this to say about the USA Patriot Act
More on the relevant section 215 from the ACLU
The ALA on privacy and library records
A Library Journal article on protecting privacy

And The Library Awareness Program gives me a glimpse of the FBI's history of interest in my library books.

And Here's what the FBI has to say about it. I'm a US citizen, so allegedly I cannot be investigated based only on checking out some books, but you never know what else in my history the FBI might think suspicious. Looks like my best bet would be to find books that might relate to "international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities".

Now, it's quite difficult to determine what would really alarm the FBI, given that gag orders and secrecy abound in these cases. So I must use my judgment and creativity as well as my research skills. Also, I've decided to collect a variety of materials, both because this makes life more interesting, and because this way my stacks of books look freaky (e.g. I'm not researching one "questionable" topic, but a bunch of unrelated ones), so there's more chance of someone being alarmed by *something* in there.

Step 2: Assess area library privacy policies-- am I more likely to get flagged one place than another?
The University's policy was buried here
. Area public ibrary policies are not posted on the interwebs. I am given to understand that they are fairly standard in terms of being in line with the ALA's stance on privacy. For the edification of my fellow players, here is an exemplary privacy policy from the Skokie Public Library. And here's A detailed policy discussing the ramifications of the USA PATRIOT Act.

Step 3: Check out books!

To establish a pattern of "deviance," and because I can only fit so many books in my backpack, I will take a few trips to the university and public libraries. Why do I not just return the books immediately (assuming I don't want to read them)? Most libraries dump checkout records once materials have been returned for privacy reasons (as well as "we don't want to keep track of a ton of data" reasons), so if I keep books out for awhile there's more opportunity for the Feds to request my records.

Methodology: Poke around the catalog for suspicious subject headings (e.g. ones related to terrorism) and note where books under these headings are. Go there and browse around. That way if I see books which look even *more* suspicious and alarming than what I happen to find in the catalog, I can get those!

Trip #1: Terrorism, Sex, and Drugs!
We return to the university library (last seen in Taking Pleasure in Institutional Life, so I hope you appreciate what I'm subjecting myself to) for this one.

Moats, Jason B. Agroterrorism: A Guide for First Responders.

Davis, Lois M. , Louis T. Mariano, Jennifer E. Pace, Sarah K. Cotton, and Paul Steinberg. Combating Terrorism: How Prepared Are State and Local Response Organizations?

Phares, Walid. Future Jihad: Terrorist Strategies Against America. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2005.

Califa, Patrick. Sensuous Magic: A guide to S/M for Adventurous Couples.

Bright, Susie. Full Exposure: Opening Up to Your Sexual Creativity & Erotic Expression.

Beck, Jerome and Marsha Rosenbaum. Pursuit of Ecstasy: The MDMA Experience. Albany: State University of New York Press. 1994.

Note: We'd like to think the FBI doesn't care about sex, but can we be sure? Also, these serve as an additional red flag to anyone with access to information about what I've checked out-- oh noes, naughty books! In the library! Scandalous! What *are* they teaching those undergrads? And hey, the first one seemed quite appropriate given my last task in the library.)


Trip #2: Moar terrorism+ overthrowing the government (at the public library)

This wasn't the most fruitful public library trip-- they don't have the world's largest nonfiction collection. Note to self: make list of suspicious fiction. In the meantime...

These books were checked out using a self-checkout system, as staff were busy. But this system has a large screen that people can see, so perhaps someone will report my suspicious checkouts. Plus the system uses RFID tags in the books, so maybe the FBI is *tracking my books right now*.

Anarchist voices : an oral history of anarchism in America /
by Avrich, Paul.

Eco-terrorism : radical environmental and animal liberation movements /
by Liddick, Don.

How to overthrow the government /
by Huffington, Arianna Stassinopoulos, 1950-

Terror on the Internet : the new arena, the new challenges /
by Weimann, Gabriel, 1950-

Trip #3: Terrorism and Still More Questionable Reading Matter at the Other Public Library
9-11 /
by Chomsky, Noam.

Agents of repression : the FBI's secret wars against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement /
by Churchill, Ward.

The Al Qaeda reader /
by Ibrahim, Raymond.

Green Arrow : quiver /
by Smith, Kevin, 1970-

Embroideries /
by Satrapi, Marjane, 1969-

Note: The last two are graphic novels. As we know, comics are a grave danger to the children and should not be in the library! These are very suspicious. And the last one is about people from Iran (and by the author of the excellent Persepolis)-- a double whammy of suspiciousness!

Trip #4: The Wide World of Government Documents

Much as it might not want to, the government is supposed to make its unclassified documents and proceedings available to the public. The university here, like many, is a government documents repository. So all I must do to obtain reading materials about nuclear waste and whatnot is brave the labyrinthine library once again, foil the compact shelving's attempt to thwart me, and stave off the boredom of looking at many shelves full of books with identical bindings about really boring senate proceedings. But I came out with these two suspicious-looking items.

United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. Civilian radioactive waste disposal : hearings before the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, United States Senate, One hundredth Congress, first session, on S. 1007 ... S. 1141 ... S. 1211 ... S. 1266 ... S. 1428 ... July 16 and 17, 1987.

Radioactivity in consumer products / edited by A. Alan Moghissi ... [et al.].