During a period of over 10 years, a special intelligence unit within the US State Department, has spied on citizens in foreign countries. The unit is known as the "SIMAS unit" and is connected to US embassies all over the world, there task is, officially, to secure US embassies and the staff working there.
It all started in the Norwegian capitol, Oslo where the Norwegian TV-channel TV2, discovered that such a unit, though working independently from the US embassy in Oslo, had spied on Norwegians in a period of more than 10 years.

They had operated from a so-called base office in an office building close to the US Embassy in Oslo. From there they gathered information to a US State Department database, regarding Norwegians that participated in demonstrations, was critical towards the US foreign politics, and other so-called suspicious US critical activities.