I worked 25 years as an investigator for the U.S. Government, and 3 years in intelligence work for the U.S. Army. We looked for lots of little clues that would seem silly tyo a lay person - but they make sense when viewed within context. Investigators rely on hunches - but a good "hunch" is usually a logical combination of countless subtle clues, clues that an ordinary person wouldn't notice. You can train people to develop good hunches, but it takes a lot.

If I saw a person whose behavior fit ten different factors, and one of those factors was that he was the only person in the airport carrying an almanac or a navigational chart - that might make me want to watch that person until I decided whether his behavior was legitimate or not.

But that's how the job is done - watching for little clues that may or may not be significant. It used to bug the heck out of me when we would get inexperienced managers who would order us not to do something because it was "counterproductive" - even though we knew darn well that it was something that indirectly helped us develop information that was productive.

So, yeah, I'd watch for almanacs.
But I wouldn't arrest somebody or even question him for carrying an almanac.

-Joe Offer-

Oh - we had about 100 investigators on the West Coast of the U.S. doing security clearance investigations. Most of the investigators were very intelligent, liberal-minded people with a variety of interests. We had many musicians and historians among us. Of the 100, I can think of two who were right-wing nuts - but they still were able to divorce their politics from their work and do a pretty decent job. They took a lot of ribbing for their alarmist views, and they responded with a good sense of humor.