Things may turn difficult when a person featured in a Tallinn report happens to also be entered into a like report in some other nation. For instance: while in Madrid or Cairo, near US embassies, they might be taking pictures of places of interest.

Then, the Americans will be asking: why is one and selfsame person, in various locations, taking pictures of US embassy neighbourhoods. This may be sufficient to get entry banned into USA.

Wikileaks exposure

The US units were discovered as early as in 2010 as a document leaked into Wikileaks regarding US paid SDU units active in Oslo, Norway. One by one, such activities were exposed also in capitals of Iceland, Sweden and Finland.

Back then, Estonian interior minister Marko Pomerants (IRL) assured the media he knew nothing about such a unit in Estonia. Mr Pomerants lied not – only after the articles had been published was the minister was made current with what the US embassy was doing. As for interior ministry management, they had been in the know for a longer while.

To the knowledge of Postimees, SDU has operated in Estonia for almost a decade without an official agreement for that. Before 2013, the embassy had not yet hired its SDU team, but the job was done by the security staff guarding the embassy.

Things got official on October 7th 2013 as interior ministry vice-chancellor Erkki Koort signed the secret memorandum with US Embassy. In it, it is acknowledged that both nations are worried for the security of diplomats, wherefore even in the future Estonia grants the Embassy permission to use a security team to protect its staff and building. However, the only allowed method of work for the latter is monitoring. As soon as a situation arises requiring interference in public space, Estonian internal security agencies need to be summonsed.

What is the database SIMAS?

Security Incident Management Analysis System (SIMAS) is an US governmental database created at the beginning of 2000ies for the entry of whatever is suspicious that is happening near US embassies or consulates. To get entered, it is sufficient for people to be near an embassy or other real estate used by USA without an obvious reason, do it regularly, park for a longer period of time, take pictures or write something down, to look as one would monitor or survey some embassy worker.

Lion’s share of SIMAS reports are compiled by hired watchers in private clothes – the SD unit. A typical SD report includes a video recording, photos, detailed description regarding the time and the place, the person’s appearance, the route, the vehicle and its number plate. The entry may afterwards be complemented by things like passport data or personal data received upon enquiry from Estonian police.

The SIMAS info is viewable, in real time, for all US embassies. Also, the data is distributed to a minimum of 12 US governmental agencies beginning with CIA and ending with the Federal Reserve, which will use the data to detect terror threat.