Anyone who spends time on the internet knows that our demographics, preferences and interests are assiduously tracked by Big Tech companies hoping to capture more of our dollars. They record our keystrokes, time spent on certain web pages, how long we hover over different subjects.
What if those companies shared the information with a government intent on tracking our every move to determine not only if we had broken the law, but planned to commit crimes?
That’s the question that Pulitzer Prize finalist Laila Lalami explores in her new novel “The Dream Hotel,” published this month.
In this novel that recalls the societal oppression and alienation in the works of Margaret Atwood and Franz Kafka, protagonist Sara Hussein is detained at the airport as she returns to Los Angeles from a conference in London.
Because a sleep device controlling her insomnia allows her dreams to be tracked without her knowledge, Sara has been deemed likely to commit a violent crime and taken to a “retention center” for 21 days of observation. That period is repeatedly extended unilaterally by center employees for infractions such as using an unapproved hair style or loitering in a hallway.
Sara is Moroccan American like Lalami, who has dug deep into her heritage for past novels including “The Moor’s Account,” which was a Pulitzer finalist in 2015. Lalami’s bestselling 2019 novel “The Other Americans,” is about the suspicious death of a Moroccan immigrant in the U.S.
The controls that Sara suddenly finds herself subject to stem from the Crime Prevention Act that Congress passed after 86 people were shot dead on live television during a Super Bowl halftime show in Miami. The broadcast watched by 118 million viewers was rapidly pulled off the air and another 32 people were killed off camera.
Outraged citizens noted that the shooter’s past was littered with red flags that could have prevented the killings – several cases of domestic violence, the recent purchase of bump stocks and ammunition on a personal credit card, his grievances against a team doctor.
Backers of the act focused on the idea of using commercial data analysis as an investigative tool by law enforcement, and granting government broader access to private records, leading to the identification and detention of people deemed likely to commit violent crimes.
A new Risk Assessment Administration began tracking many aspects of citizens’ lives like a credit agency collects data on loan repayments and credit card usage. Getting evicted, fired, even suffering a mental health crisis could all be cause for suspicion that an individual was likely to commit violence.
In Sara’s case, additional tracking can be done through a device embedded in a patient seeking care for sleep issues that can read their dreams.
The stated mission is to keep American communities safe using advanced data analytics tools to investigate suspicious individuals and identify public safety risks to prevent future crimes.
At the retention center operated by the Safe-X company, Sara yearns for nearly a year to be reunited with her husband and their twin toddlers, a girl and boy. Sara doesn’t even remember the dream that made her subject to retention — a nightmare about killing the spouse she loves.
“Police officers used to patrol neighborhoods they called “rough,” stopping and searching people they thought were suspicious,” Lalami writes, “now they sift through dreams.”
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