Dutch Internet service provider XS4ALL has a message for its government: if the government wants their spying assistance, the government's going to pay for it. All $660,000 of it.
XS4ALL sued in The Hague for what it claims are costs incurred to put in online surveillance technology under a 1998 law requiring it to have the capability of tracking Website subscriber lists and reading subscriber e-mail for reports to police and prosecutors with court orders.
The $660,000 is what XS4ALL claims it spent since 2001 to comply with that law, according to published reports.
"XS4ALL thinks it is unreasonable that the state doesn't compensate these costs," the ISP said in a formal statement. "There's no gain at all for providers in making these investments, which are in the general public interest of tracing criminals."
Justice Ministry spokesman Wibbe Alkema told reporters XS4ALL would have to challenge Dutch telecommunications law to win the case, which is scheduled for a March 23 hearing.
In his subpoena XS4ALL's attorney Remy Chavannes of the firm Brinkhof writes: "If the costs of wiretapping do not outweigh the benefits in the form of more effective law enforcement," said XS4ALL attorney Remy Chavannes in a court filing, "that is an indication that wiretapping powers should be used more sparingly, not an indication that the costs should be shifted to providers."
The ISP said announcing the lawsuit that the government only reimburses administrative costs of executing specific wiretap orders, not the investments in buying and maintaining the technology needed.
"The State justified this cost shift at the time by referring to 'budgetary reasons'," XS4ALL said. "The Dutch Council of State, a body that advises on legislation before it is presented to Parliament, and members of the (currently governing) Christian Democrat Party were extremely critical at the time about this cost shift, arguing that law enforcement was by definition a government task.
"The fact that the costs of wiretapping are increasing - also due to increasingly technically complex demands from the law enforcement authorities - is not an argument according to XS4ALL to shift the costs to the ISPs," the ISP added.
