Palantir is launching a constellation of thousands of AI-powered spy satellites in October—and its Israeli-linked architects are building the prison planet infrastructure to police Americans from space and “predict” your future crimes.
Investigative journalist Whitney Webb is sounding the alarm over the new surveillance frontier—one that fuses artificial intelligence with a sprawling network of commercial satellites to predict future crimes before they occur.
The warning centers on “Merlin,” an upcoming constellation of AI-powered satellites. Webb, speaking on The Chris Hedges Report, described the project as moving beyond traditional monitoring into the realm of predictive analytics.
BYPASS THE CENSORS
Sign up to get unfiltered news delivered straight to your inbox.
You can unsubscribe any time. By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use
“They call this new constellation Merlin. And the goal of Merlin … is to predict what will happen using AI in the satellite. It’s moving beyond surveilling what’s going on now … to predictive analytics. It’s pre-crime.”
Putin Exposes Israel Plans to Round Up American Dissidents: 'Secret Prisons Built in 50 States'
According to filings and public statements, the first satellite for the Merlin constellation is assembled and ready for an October 2026 launch, with the system expected to become fully operational soon after . Satellogic has secured significant defense contracts in 2026, including a $30 million agreement for “AI-first constellation services” and an $18 million deal with an international defense customer .
The Israeli Connection and “Pre-Crime” Policing
Webb highlighted Palantir’s close ties to Israel as a central concern regarding the technology’s potential use against American citizens.
Palantir announced a strategic partnership with Israel’s Defense Ministry in January 2024 to provide technology for “war-related missions”. Reports indicate Palantir has recruited former members of Unit 8200, Israel’s elite cyberintelligence division, and that its software has been used to combine intercepted communications and satellite imagery to generate military targeting lists.
The company’s platforms—including Gotham, Foundry, and the AI Platform (AIP)—have reportedly been deployed by the Israeli military in Gaza and Lebanon, aiding in the identification and targeting of individuals through AI-powered systems like “Lavender” and “Where’s Daddy”.
Webb’s warning centers on the potential for these same tools to be turned inward. Sources have noted that Palantir has developed technologies to track protesters and predict social unrest for the U.S. Army, capabilities that could easily be repurposed for domestic surveillance.
“What if it becomes terrorism to criticize a data center? Or the surveillance state?” Webb asked during the interview.
Webb warned that the same technology currently being used to track undocumented immigrants could be expanded to target political dissidents. The administration has already revised the Insurrection Act doctrine, lowering the threshold for military intervention in domestic affairs and allowing homeland agencies to access classified Pentagon intelligence on American citizens.
Privatization and the Surveillance State
The investigation also ties the surveillance push to what Webb describes as a broader effort by billionaire networks—including figures like Peter Thiel and Les Wexner—to privatize government functions and create “smart cities” that function as corporate fiefdoms.
Webb noted that Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel and CEO Alex Karp have shown significant interest in the writings of the neo-reactionary movement, which advocates for privatizing the state and placing it under the control of a CEO-dictator.
“It’s essentially pre-crime. Which also will eventually be applied to the war on domestic terrorism. It hasn’t happened yet. But it’s about to happen.”
