If you’re like most students, chances are the lack of classes and cheap drink specials have driven you to abject boredom when you’re not busy on 20 internships, performing menial labor, or sitting at home sponging off your parents watching daytime TV.

What better way to spend your surplus time than by finding out what kind of info the feds have on you?

That’s right, under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), individual citizens can request declassified files from the federal government, including one’s own FBI file.

Since 1975, the FBI has handled over 300,000 FOIA requests and released over 6 million pages of FBI documents.

So now, here for your summer amusement and paranoid indulgence, is the step-by-step on how to check up on just how much info Big Brother has on you. Enjoy.

Step 1: File your request. Your request needs to be specifically worded as the FBI can simply deny it if it is worded improperly. Hence it is best to consult one of the many sample templates online – a good one can be found at www.alpslabs.com/DEPT-INFORMATION-BROKERS/CATEGORY-FBI-YOUR-FILES/fbi-Letter-request.htm.

Your request should be handled free of charge if the file turns up less than 50 pages; if it is more than this, the standard copying fee is 10 cents per page. However, you may apply for a fee waiver if your request serves to increase public awareness of how their government functions. (A side note: most requests made by individuals not acting on behalf of the media will be denied, according to the FBI’s Web site).

Step 2: Get the form notarized. If you’re requesting your own FBI file, you need to have the form notarized by a notary public to legally certify that you are who you claim to be in making the request.

Most banks have a certified notary public and will notarize any document for a nominal charge (many will do it for free if you’re a member of that bank). The notary public will ask for your identification, witness you sign your request form, then place a stamp affirming that you are the individual signing.

Step 3: Send it off to FBI Headquarters. The address is: FOI/PA Unit, FBI Headquarters, J. Edgar Hoover Bldg., Washington, D.C. 20535.

Step 4: Wait 20 business days. This is the maximum time period allotted under the FOIA in which the FBI may act on your request, deny it, or specify reasons for being unable to comply within this period.

If you do not hear from them within 20 business days, file your request again, making note of your prior request and their requirement to respond in this timeframe by the FOIA.

Step 5: Read, review, enjoy.

That’s it folks – all you need to keep a baleful eye on the snooping eyes of the federal government and provide yourself with much-needed summer amusement.

As for myself, this is my last foray into the realm of undermining the operations of this government for this paper – I’m finally receiving my much-coveted degree.

Keep an eye out for John Ashcroft and a band of federal marshals waiting to tackle me this weekend as I go across the stage for scaring peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, eroding our national unity, and diminishing our resolve, as the good fhrer would put it.

Steve Skutnik is a senior in physics from Palm Harbor, Fla.